Goby choices

I was given a gift certificate to my LFS yesterday, and can't stop myself from spending it!

Even though the loss of my sleeper blue dot goby was only a few days ago, I already feel the need to get another sifter... However, I also want a goby/shrimp pair.

I want a sifter, so that the sand bed doesn't seem dead, and so the sand loses it's brown color again. But I also want a goby/shrimp pair, for the interesting symbiotic relationship, plus I'd have cool tunnels in the tank!

Is it possible to have a sifter and a goby/shrimp pair in the same tank? Or would the sifter destroy the burrows..? I know 90G is a lot of space for free-swimmers, but it feels like more than one sand-dweller would be to much.

Any thoughts? Is it doable? If so, what should I shoot for?

 

I had a yellow watchman goby/tiger pistol shrimp pair for several years.
They were fascinating to watch and would bulldoze the entire tank. Unfortunately, the pistol shrimp died after about 4 years. I still have the goby. I bought another pistol shrimp hoping they would pair up, which they didn't. I actually thought the pistol had died, so I got another. Well, the goby never paired up with either as far as bulldozing the tank together, but I now have 2 pistol shrimp and the goby sharing the same burrow! My YWM goby is also a sand sifter. He will sift sand during the daytime, and the pistol shrimp come out at night and bulldoze the sand.

I can't answer the question about 2 sifters in the same tank, but then again you may not need two!

 

Do you know what happened to your last Sleeper Goby? I am always hesitant to suggest those due to their dietary needs. Obviously a 90 gallon tank is not small by any means, but it very well could have ran out of food.

 

Well, I feel like my tank has plenty of mysis/brine in it.. The rocks seemed to be crawling with them at night. But he never sifted much. The one at my LFS would make burrows and huge piles of sand, but mine was shy, mostly chilled in the back, and sifted very little. Maybe the sandbed doesn't have what he needed.. I'm not sure. I feed the tank half a cube of frozen shrimp every two days, and flakes on the days I don't feed the shrimp.

I wanted to get a shrimp/goby pair regardless of whether or not I could get a sifting goby, so I went to my LFS yesterday and picked up an archfin goby (not sure if there's a more common name for that one), a pistol, and a coral beauty (parents' contribution to the tank).

The pair started hanging out together after just a few minutes (the shrimp couldn't maneuver through the rocks very well), and have been together ever since. I checked the bottom of the tank today, and much to my excitement and expectations, the shrimp started making a burrow! I checked under the tank again after work, and the burrow has already doubled in size.

Given the info I posted a few paragraphs ago, would I still be able to get a sifter? Or should I try cultivating pods?

Thanks for the replies!

 

Agreed. Sand-sifting gobies are predators, not scavengers. They feed on the infauna found in a 'true' live sandbed- mollusks, worms, etc., etc., etc. Once the population is depleted, the goby usually starves.

 

What should I do to populate the sandbed? And would an archfin even need that?

 

Archfin is the orange spotted goby

 

Are there gobies/blennies that don't require micro-fauna to survive?

 

+1 Spot on. Sleeper gobies have a poor long term success rate because of the dietary needs. I imagine a vast majority are already compromised nutritionally even before they make it to a hobbyist tank. Duplicating their dietary requirements regardless of tank size would be difficult to say the least. Their best chance is in a large established tank (over a year).

This type of goby should avoided in my opinion. Sleeper gobies appear to be doing fine for months, but it's a slow starvation and inability to meet their dietary needs that leads to their death. Hobbyist will post that the fish just mysteriously died for no known reason.

With so many alternatives available you should not have an issue with finding a fish or invert to keep your sand clean. Nassarius snails, Tiger tail cucumbers, hermits, other gobies types should be able to keep your sand bed stirred.

 

Well, my snails generally stay on the rocks or the glass, even if the sand needs cleaning. The hermits don't do much cleaning (that I can tell of) either. But the black and white stomatella are hard at work when the lights go out. I haven't seen my orange spotted goby sift, though I read that they do. I don't necessarily want another sleeper goby, just something that can stir sand, but not rely on the organisms in it as a food resource.