Gobies and tiny fish

[senatormoe31]

Anyone interested in the little stuff should post whatever they want to talk about or have questions about.

I am really into little goby species and dartfish too. I have these little fishes so if anyone is interested in any info on these or has any info on these just type away.


tank is 100g sps/lps

2X Gobiodon okinawae----spawning regularly
3X " "---being chased by the female egg layer.
4X ptereleotris zebra--two pairs dancing in water column but not breeding, that i know of.
2x Ptereleotris grammica---Shy but nesting together with suspicion of egg sack. ( mucussy bag of silvery balls in excavated hole), which i can only see at night and about every 12th day. Maybe just body slime? don't know.
3x Coryphopterus personatus--- two have a burrow but all three hang out together near the bottom during the day.
2x Gobiodon acicularis-- loosly hanging together but no rituals yet, but no aggression either.
MY PRIDE AND JOY:
2x Paragobiodon lacunicolus-- Have had all of these for months and have had two for a year. The pair just started spawning in one of my smallest Poci colonies on 7/8/07. I suspect the Trapezia crab that roams through the corals on that side of the tank may be eating the clutch by the 3rd-4th day as they start to gain color because he is always in their coral on the morn the eggs disappear. They have spawned 3 times so far.
2x Paragobiodon lacunicolus-- living seperatly in 2 other poci colonies.

These Lacunicolus gobies seemed to check out each of the different species of poci i have but i have at least 1 in each species of Poci coral.

1x Priolepis nocturnus-- He had a mate but i lost her to something while she was gravid with their first clutch.
1x godiodon histrio--he's a loaner
1x Stonogobiops xanthorhinica---He has his buddy "randallii" to keep him company.
1x African, RED Velvet gumdrop gobie--Very Criptic and i cannot even find info on "google Scholar" about this guy; been in the tank about a month or two and is only active at night. It feeds at night when i dose my Zooplankton.
1x Nemateleotris decora
1x nemateleotris magnifica---they hang together but no hope of spawning probably. hehe


i think that's all the gobies.


Any input anyone? =I :)>

[Sk8r]

I have the yellow watchman and a stonogobiops pair, what may be a pair of rainfords, and I'm hoping to get some trimmas when they come in. Gobies are my favorite fish: no muss, no fuss, keep them out of the intakes and they're tough little guys, almost never get ich, not prone to other diseases, and keep the sand clean besides. I have dartfish, and a little tailspot blenny, who's very goby friendly, one chromis for visual distraction, and to break up quarrels among the dartfish, and a mandarin who bothers no one. My tank feeds itself pretty well off the 20g refugium, and is pretty chemically stable once I got a kalk reactor. I had to move, and am only set up since April, but we're getting along well. Montiporas are now growing nicely, lps are lush, and the sole surviving acro is now fragged and holding its own.

[senatormoe31]

I tryed a little blue line trimma and he dissappeared into the base of the rock after about 2 days never to be seen again. He could be in there but I'm not holding out much hope. May have been just one too many little sand guys> I don't know.

i usually subscribe to the 1 strike rule with new/untested fish, but i will probably try some in my smaller 55g at some point.

[Pyrrhus]

1x African, RED Velvet gumdrop gobie--Very Criptic and i cannot even find info on "google Scholar" about this guy; been in the tank about a month or two and is only active at night. It feeds at night when i dose my Zooplankton.

Caracanthus Madagascariensis- it is actually a scorpionfish

I have a priolepis nocturna female in Bunker's tank at the store, used to have a mate but the female killed him, i think the tank was too small when they were in the 6 gallon.

[senatormoe31]

I stand corrected. Thanks Skipper!!
The only info I had was the base/shipping description from AT where I got him.
He is way cool though, he rocks me like a hurricane, YYEEAAAHH!. hehehehe

[senatormoe31]

SKIP,
I guess you got a BIG book or sumpin, huh?
hehe lol

[senatormoe31]

My Priolepis Nocturnus is in my 100g sps.
It hid for 3 months and I only got glimpses as it darted from the underside of it's cave to grab meaty foods, but in the last 8 months it has become a wanderer checking out every nook and cranny in the tank. Then I added the smaller one and they paired up INSTANTLY and 2 months later the smaller one was gravid (orange egg mass in the abdomen), and then after about 4-6 days it dissappeared.
nowadays he ( I think that because the one that died was the one i could see the eggs in before it disappeared) can be found sleeping with or cavorting with the firefish, bar gaobis and even my pixie hawk or perchlet (Plectranthias inermis) for a few minutes at a time. just chillin on the bottom or ruble together.
he covers the whole 5ft length of my tank, day or night.
pretty cool.

[senatormoe31]

I'm definatley going to try to pair it up again..

[senatormoe31]

My nocturnus even chases my 6 line away, and I had to remove my Cirrhalibrus jordins because the %&%^^$% 6 line was harrassing them.
But the 6 line won't *&^@ with the Convict gobie.
It's all about attitude i guess.

[Sk8r]

One thing I've observed about gobies: if something they don't like is around, they go cryptic.

My yellow watchman is the most up-front guy in the tank. I got in a purple tang for the 2 months before I moved so he could do some caulerpa removal. The watchman vanished. Would NOT come out until after we moved and Mr. Tang went to another owner. Now he's very much out and about and full of bluster again. I wonder if he "thinks" tangs eat shrimp and his might be in danger. For some reason, either the yellow tail or the fact it's a tang, he didn't like it.
My mandarin, however, fell in love and followed Purple Guy everywhere, learned from him that mysis are food, and has believed it ever since.

[grenaria]

SKIP,
I guess you got a BIG book or sumpin, huh?

Yeah Skip, amazing how you came up with that identification! Just what book was it that you used for that? ;)

[senatormoe31]

Well Sk8r,
In my experience, tangs, rabbit fish, angels, butterfly's and other relatively non-aggressive fish WILL make smaller fish become cryptic. Just the simple back and forth through the water column makes them seem timid. I have switched to more planktivorous dart and gobie fish to solve my asthetic water column prob.
the Planktivores, including bar gobies, fairy and flasher wrasses seem to create less tension in my little guys.

[aphenes]

Reef Fishes Vol. 1 covers the coral crouchers, Caracanthus sp.. I don't recall if the species Skip refered to is covered in it.
It is by Scott W. Michael.

[senatormoe31]

If your tank is less than 125g and you want your small fish to flourish and be seen in a wholey new way-------,, Take out your zebrasoma tang, naso tang, rabbitfish or the like and watch the little guys blossom!!
Those relatively large "growing" herbivores might be "nipping" at lps like bubbles and euphyllias, gorgonians, clam mantles, and any softies or leathers.
They are after the zooplankton and protienoius mucus that these guys catch and produce, not the tissue itself.
Seen it time and time and time and time and time again.

[senatormoe31]

YEAH, I've been toying with broadening my library of "fish" books and info, but have forgone that for the purchase of tons and i repeat tons of buffer and Calcium i have had to buy in the last year or so. I am well into the second year with my new 100g SPS system. It's rockin my pocket book for sure for supplements.

CAREFUL what you wish for!! hehehehe

[Pyrrhus]

Actually the ID credit goes to Alex (grenaria) for the Caracanthus, he figured it out when we got one in at ATR a few months back.

My big book is www.fishbase.org virtually every known species in the ocean is listed. Of course you have to have an idea of where to look first.

[senatormoe31]

Yeah I know, have used it dozens and dozens of times, along with google scholar but thx.

[senatormoe31]

must have been a little off on my search.

[Pyrrhus]

It doesn't hurt that I have pretty much every hobby book available for research, my favorite for fish is Dr. Burgess' Atlas of marine fishes (forgot exact title.)

[Sk8r]

Alas, I had a filamented fairy wrasse that did in a redstripe goby I particularly loved, plus a rainford goby, and Mr. Wrasse went back to the LFS. I have a thing about wrasses and dottybacks: no more for me, in the kind of tank I prefer to keep, which lets me imagine my little fishes in a reef considerable on the scale of a real natural reef.b

[Pyrrhus]

P. nocturna can be sexed based on the eyespot on the dorsal fin. Females have a distinct border around the eyespot and the males have a more muddied transition. There was an article on breeding them in a magazine a couple of years ago. I think it was TFH.

[pc1blues]

This is the kind of tank I want to setup. In the process of moving up from a 55 to a 120 and would like to have a gobie and wrasse dominated tank. Any advice would certainly be appreciated. Now I have my work cut out for me trying to translate the scientific names that you guys throw around into pictures in my mind so I can figure out want I want.:) Any chance you can help us relative newcomers out with a few pics and translations into some common names. I know need to learn the correct names but heck I have trouble with the english language
Thanks.

[Pyrrhus]

pc1blues, it can be a pain to link multiple pics to RC if you don't host them yourself or on an alternate photo site. I would suggest copy and paste into google image search, works pretty well most of the time. Also try www.fishbase.org takes a bit more time but a lot more information.

[pc1blues]

I know skip... got a bit of work cut out doing my research. Was just looking for that momentary instant gratification if you guys were throwing out a pic or two. Maybe we could get senatormoe31 to post a pic or two of his favorite. :) Please oh pretty please. Oh newbie begging here.

[grenaria]

Just giving you a hard time Skip :) To be honest, we just got a new super tiny goby this week, and Skip identified it to genus with a single glance. I couldn't even make out identifying features on the tiny speck of fish. Of course I had to look it up, and of course he was correct. I will try to get pictures of it soon, it is so tiny, Burgess' Atlas listed it's maximum size as 3.5cm.

Anyone who knows my wife probably knows we love tiny fish, especially gobies. Our first fish was a Stonogobiops yasha we picked up at ATR, who is still with us after more than 2 years.

http://corallabs.com/babies/yasha.jpg

After her, we ended up with 3 more Stonogobiops yasha, another females and two males. Unfortunatly, we may have lost one of them a few months ago.

Recently we have started getting a lot of juveniles, here are some recent pictures.

http://corallabs.com/babies/jawfish.jpg
http://corallabs.com/babies/creolewrasse.jpg
http://corallabs.com/babies/neongoby.jpg
http://corallabs.com/babies/chromis.jpg

[grenaria]

Here we go, got it this morning; Priolepis hipoliti

http://corallabs.com/babies/hipolti2.jpg

[senatormoe31]

As far as pciblues goes.
Partner or Madam,
the best thing for you to do would be to buy:

"Reef Aquarium Fishes"
by Scott Michael It's blue and small and has tons of pictures and info about all sorts of Reef fish.

It's about $30 and I know that AT has them and I bet Skip does too.

It's worth it.

Then at least you will have an idea about catagories of fish and some idea of shapes and sizes.

It's a great book for beginner's

Just Ask MIKE at Aqua Touch and he'll make sure to get one for you if you can't find it.

[senatormoe31]

Also
You should probably mix it up a bit with the population of your new tank-----Not ALL gobies and Wrasses, because there are some cool dart fish, tile fish, blennies ( Ecsenius is my fav. Genus) anthias, cardinals, damsels/ chromis, Fairy/flasher wrasses and gobbs of gobies. You are going to want to plan the population ahead of time and plan the order of their introduction also.

[senatormoe31]

Here are some of my favorite fishes common name's:

prawn/watchman gobies, firefish, dartfish, tilefish,coral/citron gobies, pixie hawk/perchlets or anthias, bangaii/pajama cardinals, fairy/flasher wrasses (all of them), rabbitfish (can be on the lg size but way cool colors and patterns on some), tiny rubble gobies and I guess I have to add "certain" scorpion/leaf fish.

[senatormoe31]

I don't have anything against Angels, Butterflies, Triggers, Stethojulis or Thalassoma wrasses, Lions, Tangs or any fish for that matter.
But, In a reef tank under 250g, I have seen problems much of the time with almost all of these animals if they are not fed abundantly.
i think these fish are awsomely beautiful, but they are all eventually or maybe worse ( immediately and consistantly) going to pick-pick-pick.
But, even if they don't eat the coral or polyp tissue- they are going for food that the coral has captured, and then tearing it away.

Zebrasoma tangs and Most if not all sm & Lg angels are a couple of these particular fish that most people enjoy and very often buy for a system that is smaller than ideal ---MMMMM K and then find out that their purple or yellow or sailfin or scopas tang; or their flame, potters, eibli eye or coral beauty angel is picking at their clam, gorgonian, lps ( bubble, open brain, fungia, hammer/torch/frogspawn) or is sickly/skinny from too little of the appropriate food.
Also these fish tend to become more and more territorrial/aggressive as they go from juv. to adult and/or as populations in the tank grow.

Just trying to start some dialogue about what is "appropriate" and what is "practical"
In my opinion they dialogue in the hobby whether at stores or in here or in mags is the same.
"appropriate" fish are "technically" alright for reefs because they don't "eat corals".
"practical" fish are the one's we VERY rarely, if ever, have problems with; other that conspecifics amoung species and Genus'.

[senatormoe31]

yada,yada,yada.

[senatormoe31]

Wow,
I should have taken a breath somewhere in that diatribe cause i'm dizzy now.

[senatormoe31]

IS my thread dying???

[MelloYellow]

haha, such is life! All things must come to an end :)