Bear Claw
Active Member
My Diamond Goby is a constant sifter and is looking good and healthy, but with fish I feel like its always pretty hard to tell. Every time I feed he runs back to his cave. Im worried he's not getting enough to eat. Any tips??
Diamond Goby Feeding
- Thread starter Bear Claw
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Bear Claw
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No, I'll check it out. Does it not scare the fish?
blaxsun
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Everything is going to freak them out (at least initially). But my fish have all grown to love the feeder tube (some of them will come up and chew on it because they know it has all the goodies).
Bear Claw
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Cool!! I'll defiantly check it out!! Thanks so much for the tip!!
Many don't eat prepared foods. It's not what they naturally do. They're actually a difficult fish to keep long term. Famous jumpers too
i cant think
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These fish often starve in captivity. Even if they eat prepared they often wither away and die. They eat WAY too much for a tank to keep up with. Even in the largest of tanks they often decimate the microfauna in the sandbed. Their food source is only in the sand, they don’t get it anywhere else. Here’s something I wrote in a post about the family “Gobiidae”.
“This is why I didn’t add Valenciennea, I was going to but they really aren’t good for a tank unless they’re in a 5-6 year old tank.
Most of the time Valenciennea will wither away and die - I have been debating one in my 2 year old 4’ tank but still don’t know if I’m willing to. The reason why many Valenciennea species wither away and die is due to what they use the sand bed for. These gobies could be worse than dragonets to keep, they use the sand bed to sift through and find microfauna like amphipods and copepods. The young (<2 year old) tanks can’t sustain these long term because they don’t have the micro fauna to forage in. Valenciennea gobies are known as the “sleeper” gobies, so I’d recommend avoiding them unless you have a 2 year old or older tank. These also need rather large tanks, they’re more active than the average goby and get 4 inch, in many cases 5-6 inch. I’d probably say a 3’ tank is pushing it for the minimum tank size, 4’-6’ would be best IMO.”
“This is why I didn’t add Valenciennea, I was going to but they really aren’t good for a tank unless they’re in a 5-6 year old tank.
Most of the time Valenciennea will wither away and die - I have been debating one in my 2 year old 4’ tank but still don’t know if I’m willing to. The reason why many Valenciennea species wither away and die is due to what they use the sand bed for. These gobies could be worse than dragonets to keep, they use the sand bed to sift through and find microfauna like amphipods and copepods. The young (<2 year old) tanks can’t sustain these long term because they don’t have the micro fauna to forage in. Valenciennea gobies are known as the “sleeper” gobies, so I’d recommend avoiding them unless you have a 2 year old or older tank. These also need rather large tanks, they’re more active than the average goby and get 4 inch, in many cases 5-6 inch. I’d probably say a 3’ tank is pushing it for the minimum tank size, 4’-6’ would be best IMO.”
Bear Claw
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interesting. I have an 8 month old tank. What would you have me do?
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Personally I’d try to keep adding pods weekly if you were to keep it but if you didn’t need to keep it, I’d try find a nicely aged tank to rehome it to. Say a 2+ year old tank (Preferably 3-5) would be a good place to start.
If you want a sandsifting animal then I’d leave that for the CUC (Nassarius Snails eat the detritus in it so they’re good sifters). Or if you want a sandsicting goby, I’d recommend the genus Koumansetta.
NickHolmes
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My Diamond Goby would happily contest for pellets high up with the other fish. It unfortunately found a gap in the jump guard
BoneDoc
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We called ours “Fat Gus” because I swear he must be pregnant. Eats very much everything. But he wrecks havoc to the Sandy substrate. So keep that in mind. We don’t mind so much because of the added personality.
BoneDoc
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Something to keep in mind. I think successful keepers often forget that in the beginning there may be challenges along the way.
When we first got Gus, he was eating frozen at the store. I think this is CRUCIAL IN ANY FISH PURCHASE. Fish that eats may still die. But fish that does NOT eat has a much higher mortality rate
we did the quarantine and Gus was eating more aggressively in the 3 weeks I had him eating more aggressively over that time, so much so that I was worried our Midas Blenny wasn’t eating enough .
bWe also successfully nursed a Copper Band Butterfly, named her (Nervous) Nelly lol. She was much harder to get going and I made sure that every time I feed the tank I see her eat well.
the key to acclimation and eating for me is to feed frequently and generously. If your float ration can’t handle it then be prepared to do frequent water changes. We have the Salifert ammonia badge so I can get visual cues on ammonia level.
Hope that helps.
Josh
When we first got Gus, he was eating frozen at the store. I think this is CRUCIAL IN ANY FISH PURCHASE. Fish that eats may still die. But fish that does NOT eat has a much higher mortality rate
we did the quarantine and Gus was eating more aggressively in the 3 weeks I had him eating more aggressively over that time, so much so that I was worried our Midas Blenny wasn’t eating enough .
bWe also successfully nursed a Copper Band Butterfly, named her (Nervous) Nelly lol. She was much harder to get going and I made sure that every time I feed the tank I see her eat well.
the key to acclimation and eating for me is to feed frequently and generously. If your float ration can’t handle it then be prepared to do frequent water changes. We have the Salifert ammonia badge so I can get visual cues on ammonia level.
Hope that helps.
Josh
lavoisier
Valuable Member
What size tank do you have? They will eat live or frozen brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, live blackworms, and copepods, and other prepared marine foods so make sure such food is available to it. The suggestion of a feeding tube is excellent and it gives you peace of mind.
I use a long turkey baster tool and shoot frozen food right at the open of my Watchmans cave opening. They have them pretty cheap on amazon.
mine was pretty skittish at first, but he came around, still hides sometimes if im too much into the tank but feeding he still comes out. Remember that even if hes not eating directly hes filtering through left overs in the sand. I have had mine in current tank that was a fresh start since april '21, and he was in a fresh tank since the feb '20. So no idea about them withering away in my experience. Mine is roughly 5-6" in a 110g. To be fair i run no other CUC other than 2 turbos and him. Sand looks as fresh as when i put it in, though he has a bad habbit of burying my scoly. leaves my trachy and acans alone but that scoly he buries weekly
Bear Claw
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I have a 35 gallon
Bear Claw
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I've been doing that with a little like syringe like thing to shoot it in the opening of his cave. It seems to be working well.
Dfw.corals
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My diamond goby started off only sifting but has since become an eating machine. Frozen, flakes, pellets ... even nori sheets. He eats literally everything
I forgot to mention that I turn all the flow off for a few minutes and make sure he gets at least a few good bites before I turn it back on.
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