Diamond goby

[rdanamorton]

just purchased a "diamond goby" touted as a great way to clean brown diatoms/fuzz from my sand substrate.

he's amazing to watch, picking up mouthfuls of sand, sifting it and passing it out the back of his gills. leaves little piles everywhere.

anyone familiar with these guys, i'v only had it a couple of days?

[Amphiprion]

They don't really eat diatoms or other algal material to any great extent. However, they do thoroughly enjoy the sediment infauna in your sand--you know, the ones you paid all that money for in live rock and/or sand. If the tank is large enough, this may not make much of an impact, but in smaller tanks, these fish usually end up starving (or malnourished) due to the complete predation of the smaller infauna. Hopefully, you can get it to eat prepared foods so that its diet will be supplemented. Not usually a fish I would recommend unless someone had a good surface area of open, infauna-rich sand (which *usually* precludes larger tanks).

[rdanamorton]

i'll pay closer attention re whether he's eating prepared foods, hopefully he'll eat it. and i don't have a large tank w/infauna rich sand...so he'll have to make do.