Goby only tank

[pstank1]

I have a 50ish gallon tank that I have recently started switching over to a full sps tank. I finally found a home for my long tentacle anemone. Now I just need to move my pair of black and white ocellaris to my cube and their new bubble tip.

Because my tank is only 30x18x21, I realized there isn't going to be a whole heck of a lot of room for fish to swim around once my corals start growing out, so I thought I would stock with little fish. Has anyone had any experience with stocking trimma gobies, eviotas, green banded gobies and other small gobies (staying away from clowns)?

[brad ellington]

this sounds very cool i like the idea of a lot of smaller fish in a tank I have seen a hand full that had small shrimps and gobies

[SushiGirl]

Tagging along...we want a bunch of small fish when we get our 140 set up.

[pstank1]

I need to do more research on the interwebs to see which, if any, of these guys swim around in the mid to upper portion of the tank. I don't want to end up with a bunch of bottom dwellers.

[pstank1]

So a few more questions if anyone has any input, that would be great.

My clowns will be moved to my cube tomorrow, so my tank will be down to one Paracheilinus carpenteri and one Priolepis nocturnus. I was looking to add 2 or 3 Elacatinus multifasciatum, 3 or so Eviota pellucida and Eviota nigriventris (each), then a few species of trimma.

Questions.

In a semi mature (about 4 years old) 50 gallon with 20 long sump, can I support that many? These guys are tiny, most of them stay under an inch. I think the Elacatinus multifasciatum are the largest of the ones i'm looking to add and i don't think they get much more than 1 1/2 inches from what I've read.

If i can stock that many, can i do it without having them kill each other? Will it be the war of the Lilliputians in my tank? Do they all need to go in at the same time or am I ok with just adding all of a specific species at once?

[SushiGirl]

I wish I could help you! We also want to set up a 20L, and this info would be nice for me to know, too.

[rwb500]

I don't want to end up with a bunch of bottom dwellers.

then a goby tank is not what you want. if you are just looking for small fish, that is another discussion.

[G4546]

then a goby tank is not what you want. if you are just looking for small fish, that is another discussion.

+1 ...

Although the stocking list sounds quite coolio ;) A bunch of lil guys all cruising around through some SPS :) But, I do agree with the above. All of those are tiny little hiders. Keep us updated on what you end up doing, I'd like to tag along same as Sushi on this.

[pstank1]

Well, by bottom dweller i meant more like my Priolepis nocturnus which just hangs out in a little cave all the time. I'm ok with them hanging around on top of the rocks, i just don't want all of them to be under the rocks.

I'm guessing it may come out more often once the clowns are out.

Divers den is listing a trio of Coryphopterus personatus that i may try to get. They look like they get a little on the larger side though, but should still have a pretty limited biomass i'd think. I've seen when diving down in Bonaire and St. Lucia, so i know they spend more time out in the open.

http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k365/tankdvr/Bonaire%202009/CoralandGobies-1.jpg

Sorry for the crummy quality but i had to crop a poor picture to see the gobies.

[SushiGirl]

then a goby tank is not what you want. if you are just looking for small fish, that is another discussion.

There are several gobies that aren't burrowing/bottom dwellers. All the ones listed in his first post are not bottom dwellers.

Court Jester Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+164&pcatid=164)
Gold Neon Eviota Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+2613&pcatid=2613)
Hector's Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+176&pcatid=176) An LFS here keeps a few of these in a pico on their checkout counter & they're always mid-tank when I see them.
Neon Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+1869&pcatid=1869)
Red Neon Eviota Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+1727&pcatid=1727)
Red Spotted Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+1968&pcatid=1968)
Red Striped Goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+1728&pcatid=1728)

Pstank1, we were also looking into the Orange Lined Cardinalfish (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+26+1431&pcatid=1431), Redspot Cardinalfish (http://www.zimbio.com/Reefkeeping/articles/vy126CLbiuk/Redspot+Cardinalfish+Breeding+LiveAquaria), and Longspine Cardinalfish (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+26+1428&pcatid=1428) so that's something you could look into...of course then it wouldn't be an all goby tank LOL.

Just reading about the gobies, it seems most of them will fight within types unless mated, but it really said nothing about if they would fight with different types of the same basic shape, but most fish do.

[pstank1]

I was looking at the cardinals as well, one of the stores near me has a group of longspines in right now, but I've got a redspot in my cube and it eats large chunks of food. My general rule of thumb is that if a mouth is large enough to fit a fish in it, that fish will most likely end up in the mouth at some point in time.

I'm probably going to stay away from cardinals if i decide to stock up on eviotas and trimmas.

[SushiGirl]

My orbic cardinal does have a really large mouth, but I didn't realize the small ones did too since no one here carries them. That's good to know. We were planning more on just cardinals, but I can see why you wouldn't want to mix them.

[rssjsb]

What about the masked goby?

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=747+871+2261&pcatid=2261

DD had a trio recently, and the picture looked a lot better than this. You can also get them elsewhere. I think they hover in groups over the rocks, rather than peeking out of holes or lounging on the sand. I've been considering them.

[pstank1]

I was looking at those. Those are the gobies that were in that fuzzy picture i posted a few pictures back from a dive trip.

[rssjsb]

Oh! I didn't recognize them.

[pstank1]

Hmm, I"m finding out I need to do more resarch on these little guys. Some eviota gobies have a natural life span of 5 months, many in the 18-20 months range and a few longer. Some of the trimmas live around 2 years as well. I want to make sure i don't end up with the shot lived ones.

[treesprite]

Gobies have fairly short lifespans, so be prepared to have to replace fish often.

[pstank1]

I'm fine with replacing a fish if it dies of old age after being in my tank a few years. I'm not ok with putting a fish in that could die of old age the day after i put it in my tank. I think i'm going to stay away from the eviota gobies entirely, they are just too short lived for me.

I'm thinking about picking up 6 or so Elacatinus multifasciatus. Has anyone tried a group this large or larger. Right now there's just one firefish, and one Priolepis nocturnus in my tank. My lfs just called to tell me that my red mandarin came in, so that'll go in over the weekend.

[debincalif]

I bought a neon blue goby last weekend and so far he's doing great - awesome little fish! He doesn't hang out anywhere near the bottom of the tank... prefers perching on the back wall and mid-tank LR. He's sill a bit shy, but does swim around some in the mid and upper tank.

[pstank1]

I went ahead and placed an order for 6 multifasciatus from my lfs. They should be in next week. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out. I'd still like to add a few other fish. Maybe 2 or 3 trima canna's or maybe a Paracheilinus lineopunctatus, I really like the looks of those.

[pstank1]

Does anyone have experience with a Prognathodes aculeatus, or know how rare they are? I was just reading the butterflies in a reef thread and thought I may try to give that a shot instead of trimma's or a wrasse. It'd be something big to cruise around the tank with all the little gobies.

[sushi1517]

the best fish I ever owend was a yellow clown gobie!! huge personality and would come to me! eats mainly cycopeez and phyto

[rlpardue]

Pstank1,

Did you end up getting the greenbanded gobies? I just added 4 of them a couple weeks ago. One made his burrow right by the front glass, and I enjoy watching him, but I'm wondering whether the others made it.

[Betta132]

THIS. I really want to do this. Someday I'm going to set up a macroalgae tank and stock it with all the tiny things you can't keep in most communities because of their size.
Greenbandeds are fine with others of their kind. My LFS has a 14g reef on their counter that's been up for a few years, and there's two or three greenbanded gobies in there, just fine with each other.
Masked gobies are hover-y fish. When I first saw them, I thought they were baby cardinalfish. Get a group of those, there's no way they can eat anybody else. They act a lot like cardinals, from what I've seen of them.
Perhaps consider a disco fangblenny? Very peaceful fish, and they're goby-like. They hover, too, so one of those could take up a bit of midwater space.
Hector's gobies are lovely fish. You just have to offer nori or something like that now and then, they're almost like blennies in their diet.
Neon gobies and gold neon gobies would be nice. They aren't incredibly long-lived, but you'll have them for a little while.
You need some kind of tiny shrimpgoby and a mini pistol shrimp. This would be a good tank to keep one of those rare-ish shrimpgobies in, given that there's nothing to eat them.

[pstank1]

Sorry for the lack of follow up on my posts. I ended up adding the multifasciatus. I lost one about a month in but the rest lived for about two more years. Then I lost just about everything in my tank due to having to gut my basement. I found some serious electrical issues and had to pull all of the wiring in my house and get it rewired. I tried sealing my tank up, but it appears that I still got quite a bit of drywall dust in the tank from when it went back up. About 2 weeks after the drywall went up, all of my fish were dead, lost my clam and most of my corals.

I'm actually in the process of putting together a 135 gallon tank. I will be looking for lots of gobies again. I'm also using lots of pukani rock, so i've thought about getting some barnacle blennies as well to dart in and out of all the holes in the rock. Topped off with either a harem of ignitus anthias or a group of flasher wrasses.