Diamond watchman goby

Tired of looking at a dirty sand bed, thinking about a diamond watchman goby to clear up the diatom, thoughts?

 

From what I read and my personal experience:

1) They live about 1y - 2y max.
2) The more sand you have, more likely they to live longer.
3) Any low laying corals might be in danger of getting buried by sand. Pretty much forget about any plates/fungia/elegance type corals.
4) Your sand bed will be forever uneven, with one spot/corner being 4" deep, and another only 1" deep, when everything started at 2" level.

Other than 4 downsides above, they are awesome fish. TON of character. Everyone in my family and all my guests really like to watch diamond goby filter sand and make snail piles.

 

Oh, and your sand bed will look clean. At least on surface and at least 1" deep.

 

I have a Tiger Wardi in my 55, but I have only had him for 5 months. He is a pig at feeding time, loves mysis and plankton, as well as New Life Spectrum pellets. To give you my thoughts:

1) They live about 1y - 2y max. Still alive, fat and thriving so only time will tell.
2) The more sand you have, more likely they to live longer. Agreed.
3) Any low laying corals might be in danger of getting buried by sand. Pretty much forget about any plates/fungia/elegance type corals. I have a good size Orange Plate (fungia) and it has no problem shedding any of the sand that occasionally gets on it.
4) Your sand bed will be forever uneven, with one spot/corner being 4" deep, and another only 1" deep, when everything started at 2" level. Maybe, maybe not. The front of my tank is almost level, but he definitely did his thing in the back where some areas are bare!

You should definitely do some more research before buying one of course; just trying to give you my experience.

 

they are cool fish but I have never been able to get them to live long. I guess I keep my sand too clean. Why not try a sand sifting star and nassarius snails. I have had much better luck with them.

 

Ive had several diamond gobys. A couple jumped and one got eaten by a lionfish. All of them, including the one i have now, seemed to like burying coral i had on my sandbed. He definitely keeps my sand clean and i will probably always have one. I dont care for starfish because i never see them but the goby is always out cleaning.

 

Make sure you have a tight canopy with zero gaps. Mine made it out of a small slot that was about the size of a 5pack of gum.... twice lol. They can be jumpers! Also if you have overflow walls, seal them off too, Ive had to "fish" Diamonds out of there too. Otherwise, great fish!

 

Yea my goby that got eaten, got eaten after he got stuck in my overflow and was apparently permanently disoriented afterwards.

 

I put a few fighting conchs in for the sand bed and went with a pink watchman goby for the character. Clean sand, happy corals, all is well!

 

I have heard several incident that they actually jump, is this because of the tank is a small tank? would this possible if the tank is 30" high?