Diamond Goby dilemma

[ThatsDeep!]

Hi everyone:

We thought that adding a Diamond Goby would be awesome - having a sand sifter on our CUC. We have a 55 gal tank and the only one we could get was - 4 inches or so.

Put him in the tank and if anyone here has construction experience - it was like having our own scraper [heavy earth moving equip.] he built himself a condo complex, kept the tank cloudy from all the sand moving, built walls that blocked flow, freaked out the anem and other fish, and nothing in the tank has done well since his arrival.

Husband was calming working this a.m. and I notice the goby in a QT. We knew this was not a good combo so I am glad he is getting so adept at fish trapping

Anyone have these kind of issues with this type of goby? Would you just give up or look for something tiny? He is so good at what he does - I hate seeing the look on his face [ i know] when he came and did his job beyond our wildest expectations.

Thanks for any thoughts [or chuckles] you might have on our continuing saga.

Jody

 

[aztecdreams]

Diamond Goby dilemma

Yea I had the same problem. Would bury any corals I had on the sandbed

 

[ReefCheif]

I went with a tiny one and had no isses with cloudyness, mine was also started eating flake food so hes wasnt in the sand all the time.

I have had to learn to keep frags out of the sand as he would bury them, I put small pieces of egg crate under any corals in the sand to keep him from being able to excavate under them, seems to have worked good as well, all and all hes was a cool little addition to the 75 when I had it up and running

 

[SynDen]

I have a large engineer goby and he is about the same maybe even worse. He has made like a 2 foot crater across the right side of my tank. Had to move many of my corals to keep him from continually burying them. Still have to check every morning and evening to make sure he hasnt buried anything else. None the less, I love him, pretty fun to watch and lots of character, plus he is quite the over achiever when it comes to keeping the sand sifted and aerated.

 

[ThatsDeep!]

Thanks everyone. Definitely sounds like a smaller one would have been the wiser choice, but he was the only one available at the time. He is back at LFS now waiting for someone with a much larger tank.

Reef Cheif - love the egg crate idea - think we may use that in the future.

Syn - it sounds like you understand the snafu here. And they really do have character - it was hard to let him go. I was told that "when you decide to do a reef tank, decide how big you want it and then get one twice that size". HA! Still pretty good advice and I am sure that is in our future.

Appreciate you all!

Jody

 

[SkyDiv3r17]

What kind of sand do you guys have? I use aragonite (larger grains) and he keeps it mowed over but doesn't make any large pot holes are anything.. He does his job right! lol

 

[ThatsDeep!]

That is funny Sky - we use the same type of sand, but I was amazed he could create a constant cloud of dust from it. All the corals [high and low] were covered. I was freaked to think of what sugar sand might have been like with this guy. He is a stud that is for sure. Just needs someone to give him a home in a nice 150 gal tank I think. Glad yours is working well, and it was hard to get rid of someone [even a fish] for doing his job too well. Ha!

 

[kmellon]

I've seen too many diamond gobies crop dusting corals and moving things around. I had a tiger goby in my tank until a few months ago. Still working on the sand very well and didn't go making a mess. I have enough issue with my wps moving sand around. I'll definitely get another Tiger goby when I see them come in.

 

[Munch]

I have one, love the guy. Yup, he'll bury anything on the bed, but does a great job keeping my sand spotless. With the Tropic Eden sand, I get no cloudiness...