BB tanks and gobys?

[fenderguy1]

I'm setting up a new tank and have two gobys(yellow watchman and a shrimp goby) in my old tank. I'm thinking about going bare bottom but I wanted to know if they would be ok without a sandbed? Live aquaria lists both as needing a sandbed to dig in but I wanted to see if anyone has had any exp with this. They do not really dig in my current tank and there will be plenty of large caves near the bottom of the new tank. Thanks for any info
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[jedimasterben]

Nope, they need a sandbed to build their burrow.

 

[reef boy]

Darn. I was wondering the same thing because I have a diamond goby and I was thinking of getting a frag tank and put him in there, but doesn't sound like I will because I don't want the sand on my frags.
Thanks for the info!

 

[Swine]

Darn. I was wondering the same thing because I have a diamond goby and I was thinking of getting a frag tank and put him in there, but doesn't sound like I will because I don't want the sand on my frags.
Thanks for the info!

If you have a large enough substrate you should be good. If you really want throw the goby in before the frags, let him kick up all the small particles and have some pretty high flow to get them out. That pretty much what I did with my diamond goby.

 

[luigi.dopobici]

I have a orange spot in a bb with tons of live rock with holes. So far no problems

 

[salisal]

You can have a little sand island in a dog bowl or similar - you’ll inevitably still get some sand that falls out. But if seen something similar with feeders designed for mandarins.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

Fish that dig and live in burrows can survive without sand, but why bother when that's natural to them? Don't you want to see their natural behavior? Especially with watchman gobies and their symbiosis with pistol shrimp, to me that's always been the point of keeping them is watching that interaction. If your yellow watchman don't dig it's not because they don't want to it's because they usually have a shrimp do it for them.