Murderous Watchman Goby...

[sn4265]

I think our Pink Spotted Watchman Goby has become an invert psychopath. When we introduced a pair of peppermint shrimp a few weeks ago we witnessed him making a meal of them over the course of 2 days. We recently restocked out CUC and there is a veritable shell graveyard back under the rocks where he likes to take his victims. We've witnessed him snatch up hermits and take them back to his lair. I'm not sure if he's actually able to kill the hermits and snails, but I sure don't like the idea of his feeding on our CUC.

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior from a Watchman? We are considering trying to find him a new home and go with a different kind of Goby. I'll need to figure out how to catch him if we decide to go that route. Guess I'll have to look into a fish trap.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[smaug1]

He isnt eating the snails or herms ,he is just using them for structure in his rockwork,they will be fine when they crawl away. The peppermints?,,,,,,,,,,,the heck with peppermints,,I wish my pink spot would eat mine so they would stop stealing from the corals.For my part,I would rather have my pink spot then any other critter in my tank.

[sn4265]

We got the peppermints for aptasia control more than anything else. Now I'm just treating any I see directly.

[Sk8r]

Never had a pink-spotted. I know the yellow will go ballistic over a mirror, and likely over another male, but a pretty good citizen. Will shove a mandarin out of his hole undamaged.

[89Foxbody]

Mine is very protective of his burrow...my Purple Firefish gets too close sometimes and its creepy how large the YWG can open his mouth lol. He doesn't grab my snails, but my Pistol Shrimp does. He comes out and picks them up all the time. Doesn't eat them though.

[Neptunes World]

I went through 6+ cleaners scratching my head before saw the 7th one sticking out of my pink spots mouth. Out he went.

Fast forward 2 years later to my new tank with shrimp already in. Tossed in a "small" orange spotted goby (not the sand sifting diamond) and one our later he was nipping at the shrimps tail. I was hoping it was a fad but 2 days later he came out of the rocks with shrimp whiskers sticking out of his mouth. I was so mad that if I thought the glass on the bottom of the tank would not shatter, I would have stabbed him into the sand and gutted him right there. and fed the other fish and corals with his remains. needless to say, he was out of there the next day.

[sn4265]

Funny thing is that the Watchman and our cleaner are like best buddies. In fact, the cleaner spends more time on him the rest of the fish in the tank combined.

[Neptunes World]

Wait till all the shrimps cousins are gone. My recent goby ate one cleaner, had whiskers sticking out of his mouth trying to get the other cleaner to clean out his dead buddy. Luckily the other cleaner stayed in the rock work and was like fa get u til I got the goby out.

[SushiGirl]

My orange-spotted's best bud was a small pep until it died. We got him a small cleaner recently, who's now his new best bud. If he'd go to the corner, he could have a pistol best bud, which was the point when we put them in at the same time LOL.

[Neptunes World]

Mine is just a total a**-hat! He is as mean as a damsel or psudo. a 125 6 ft long tank wasnt enough for him. He had to hunt the other gobies at each end of the tank, back and forth. Horse is my orange spot ------> :deadhorse1:

[SushiGirl]

Got a pic of this fish?

[GeneseeGlass]

I know this tread is ancient, but I ran across it looking up information about my murderous goby -- pink watchman goby too. He's approximately 7-8 years old now, but has been like this since I can remember. He's moved tanks a couple of times and I'm amazed at the sheer amount of shells he's accumulated.
We have the mysterious disappearances and the shell graveyard we call his "cave of horrors" ;) Every shell has a big chunk taken out of the entrance and mostly broken open to get the snails and hermits. Pretty surprised at how strong his mandibles are!!
Every LFS or reefer I talk to are shocked by the story I tell them and say it's very unusual and they've never heard of it.
It's getting expensive having to replenish the crabs and snails all of the time!
At least he likes to decorate with those shells ;)

Thanks for letting me know my serial killer isn't alone. Maybe we just ended up with psychopaths

[ProudSoonersFan]

I have a Yellow Watchman Goby (pretty small still...maybe 1 to 1.5 inches long) that I got at the same time as my Peppermint Shrimp. To this day, I have not seen my shrimp in over 2 months. I got no ammonia spike nor was there any remnants. The only other culprit might be the emerald crab. He loves meaty things.

[Esage]

Funny thing is that the Watchman and our cleaner are like best buddies. In fact, the cleaner spends more time on him the rest of the fish in the tank combined.

Yeah, my yellow watchman and fire shrimp are best buddies. They are always right beside each other.

[1SlickFish]

Every shell has a big chunk taken out of the entrance and mostly broken open to get the snails and hermits. Pretty surprised at how strong his mandibles are!!


You might just have something else in the tank "killing" the snails and the pink spot is using the dead snail shells for decoration. Then again, like you said, he could have one mean bite??