Black Clown Goby, Coral safe?

uhgster1 · Apr 12, 2018

Hello all, I'm observing slightly disturbing behavior from my black clown goby. It has decided to perch on one of my acan colonies and I saw it do what appeared to be nipping at the colony. Should I be concerned? It obviously irritates the colony and makes it retract but when it opens I don't see obvious signs of damage. Any experiences out there? Is this going to escalate? I like the little guy but the acan is much more valuable than he is.

DeniseAndy · Apr 12, 2018

Clown gobies can irritate acro corals. They use them to make an area for eggs so they will kill little areas off. This in the wild is not big deal, but in our tanks, if your colony is small or fragile, it can damage it pretty badly. I had a pair that were on my staghorn for years. Small 1" patch cleaned away for egg laying and rest of coral great.

They are usually eating the mucous and the slime and bugs around the coral, not the coral. However, their perching as said can be a problem.

nautical_nathaniel · Apr 12, 2018

Clown gobies will irritate corals from their perching habits but I don't believe it was intentionally nipping at the coral, it might have seen something that looked like food on the coral and went after that. Clown gobies will kill sections of SPS corals like birsdnest but I've never heard of them irritating LPs corals to the point of death.