Ive seen my yellow watchman goby 1-2 times in 2 months...help

[Ryan927]

Hey all, I have a 90 gallon reef, (well FOWLR, soon to be reef) and I purchased a YWG/Pistol shrimp really early on. I wasnt planning on it, I was just at the LFS browsing one time and I knew I wanted a goby someday and well...you know the rest.

Anyways since Ive got him, he and the shrimp have burrowed the crap out of the sand, LR, but I swear I NEVER see the goby. I thought he was dead, until about a week ago I caught a 10 second glimpse of him poking his head out, first time ive seen him since the week I got him. I see the Pistol every now and then when I feed, he'll crawl out and try to grab a bite, but no signs of the goby except every now and then ill see marks in the sand as if a snake slithered through there. Only other fish in the tank is a Oc Clown, and a really small CUC.

I wouldnt be concerned about it, but I think dude is decimating my pod population, which used to be pretty decent. Now I barely see maybe 3-5 bugs when I turn the flashlight on at night. Used to be 40-50.

Any way to coax him out? Maybe as more fish get added they will act like dithers and draw him out? Any way to catch him without tearing up the whole tank? I dont really want some unseen ghost pod eater in my tank. If he let me look at him every now and then I wouldnt mind it, but this little dude is getting a free lunch.

I had hopes of getting a mandarin dragonet someday. Is this normal? Maybe still acclimating?

[Southreef]

We can share almost the same story with our yellow watchman. We were very certain he was consumed by our green carpet and had given up on him. About three weeks later we had a "gobester" sighting and much to our shock it seemed he had been thriving in our 90. He had been busy burrowing himself a home front and center. After he hollowed his new home, he became one of the more colorful members of the tank. He interacts the most with our yellow foxface and one of our false perculas. The foxface has been known to drag his tail across the goby as if by accident, only to be met by a David and Goliath style reaction from the gobester. The clownfish interaction is a little more strange in that they will touch faces. No big displays of fin flashing or aggression with nips or bites, just some face touching. Lol

Anyway... As far as the pods, we have successfully kept him(goby) with a mandarin with no apparent ill effects for the last 2 months. Initially I shared the same concern for the mandarin and made sure to get one that would accept frozen brine. My thinking being that if he were hungry enough I would track him down and spot feed him... Which I did twice in the first week and that's it so far. He seems fine and even to be fattening up a bit. So IMO if you just give a little extra attention when you add your mandarin there should be little problem.

My tank specs just to get a fair comparison:

90 gallon with 150 pounds of live rock. The live rock was initially a mix of dry/live at about a 50/50 ratio and I still have a lot of pods...
Aqueon 4 refugium (about 30 gallons) that has only been up for 2 months and have relatively high amounts of life in my dsb with chaeto 'fuge. 15w uv and a SWC180 skimmer.

Good luck with getting him to come out!

[frankpayne32]

Don't worry too much. I've had the same yellow watchman for four years. Sometimes he'll disappear for a month, sometimes I'll see him every day. There's not really anything you can do to stop him from eating pods.