Clown Gobies

Was wondering a little about these guys, thinking about adding a yellow clown and a black clown goby to my 46gal reef to represent some Pittsburgh colors!!

GO STEELERS!!
GO PENGUINS!!
umm Pirates??

Anyways, it seems that a 46gal is PLENTY big enough since msot suggest a 5gal or 10gal for a pair. Also it seems you can mix species as they will still breed and form little hybrid babies that I will prob not be able to raise due to predation and difficulty feeding. My main concerns are feeding the adults since there seems to be many reports of difficultly adjusting them to captive care with frozen food diets. I can not find any hardcore research but did read that they only live for like 2 years which kind of sucks. Also it seems they sometimes nip at sps and lay eggs causing t issue recession, but not enough to kill or do too much damage to a large healthy colony. From my reading the yellow clowns seem to do this to acros and the black clowns to stylophora.

Anyone have any experience with these little guys? Though it would be neat to add them since I am about maxed out with 5 fish for my comfort level, still 0 nitrates and phosphates running skimmerless, but these guys are so little and occupy a little niche of their own I figure they would not add much biolaod of any to my reef. Would be ncie to se them perching on my large stylorphora or sticking their heads out from my massive xenia and jasmine polyp colonies.

 

bump

 

Have had no luck with yellow, or black clown gobies. The only ones that have success with are the green war paint gobies. We have had ours for almost 4 years. Had a pair but lost one about 2 years ago.

 

Did you attempt to keep the yellow and black ones and what was the issue with them? Was it a slow starvation issue?

 

Clown Gobies in general are an enigma. Just for the reasons you state I would not attempt one again but have had NO luck with them.Sometimes they eat sometimes they don't. Even when they do eat they can stop for no apparent reason. :-/
Whats wrong with painting some of your snails/hermits shells ??
Isn't it bad enough that your a Pittsburgh fan??????lol

 

Haha thanks Vinny. Im assuming you attempted them unsuccessfully as well? I wodner why so many sources state they are so easy to care for. I do have a very established reef that I run far from sterile. Yes I keep my walls as clean as possible but have plenty of algae on the sand and rockwork as well as a ton of corals that I feed with RODs, mysis, and reef chili so there is enough food to go around.

Maybe I will see if I can get a lfs to get some eating before makign the dicussion. Still havnt even run the idea across the wife who has t he final say in fish decisions lol. I really want some black and gold and feel a blenny or goby is my only option as I have 5 open water fish in there already.

And by the way, GO PITTSBURGH!!!!! I will be down in pompano beach in June, might try to snorkel deerfield beach again havnt been there in 10 years. Some nice little reef areas there last time I was down there

 

Well admittedly its been quite some time since I tried one but in those days I was making my own foods and should have adequately sustained them. Hopefully more people will share there experiences with them.

Go to Red Reef Park in Boca Raton.Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is also awesome and there should be turtles that time of year.

 

Thanks ill have to keep those in mind. How far are thsoe from pompano? I havnt been there in a long time but am looking foward to eating some fresh seafood again from piranha pats and the restaurant next to bass pro shop.

 

I have tried yellow and black ones. Finally found some that didn't have ick at the store and were eating. Got them home are for 2 weeks them stopped eating and died. Tried 2 more, same deal from local store, get them home and instantly have ick and go down faster than I could treat them for. Showed no signs a store and just was covered within 2 hours in the tank. No other fish picking at and an established 40b.

And any I have seen at lfs recently are skinny and ick infested

 

I'm planning a 4-6G nano (pico), and have been suggested to add one of these guys.

From reading up, they don't seem that easy. Still they are really cool, and I'd love to have one. So my question is, what DO they eat, and how much do they eat of it.
I'm perfectly willing to have arerated coke bottles standing next to the tank for a constant supply of live zooplankton, I just need to know what kind do they need (rotifers, amphipods, copepods, etc.), and how much of it.

I'm pretty sure I won't need Rubbermaid buckets full of the stuff to feed a single tiny fishy...