Diamond Watchman Goby sandstorm

USMC 4 LIFE · May 16, 2017

Considering getting this fish but I'm reading mixed reviews on whether the cloudiness it causes while sniffing the sand will subside over time. If you've own one let me know what kind of sand you had and if this cloudiness went away. I have a 90g tank with Fiji pink sand.

FYI
I'm aware they're jumpers, like to spit sand on corals nearby, burrow under rocks which can cause them to topple over,

Justmike · May 17, 2017

I have one and it is one of my favorite fish in my tank , I also have the Fiji fine pink . He works non stop burying a rock with the sand all day long and I have no clouding issues at all .
(Jumper is an understatement , I went through 3 in qt due to jumping before successful qt and had lids on all of them . One carpet surfed 17 feet away from tank.) now in my dt no issues at all.
Hope that helps

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

Thanks and it does.

eatbreakfast · May 17, 2017

Anything that causes cloudiness eventually gets filtered out.

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

eatbreakfast said:
Anything that causes cloudiness eventually gets filtered out.

I hope that's the case. I'll start looking for one this weekend then

hartin461 · May 17, 2017

Had one in my 180 and did a good job of sand sifting. Can`t remember the name of the sand I had but was fine, along the sugar grain size.
He did like to take a mouth full and then proceed to do a fly by and bomb all over the place. Didn`t really care for having to go behind him and blow the sand off of the rocks and coral..

Iiismet · May 17, 2017

Mine doesn't move to much sand around but he is small, about an inch. He does like to go for rides down my overflow and I've found him in the sump multiple times

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

hartin461 said:
Had one in my 180 and did a good job of sand sifting. Can`t remember the name of the sand I had but was fine, along the sugar grain size.
He did like to take a mouth full and then proceed to do a fly by and bomb all over the place. Didn`t really care for having to go behind him and blow the sand off of the rocks and coral..

I hear they do that a lot. I don't plan on placing any corals on the sand bed or close to it so I don't foresee that being a problem unless he pretends to be a B-52 bomber and starts unloading piles of sand from the very top of the tank.

mandarin417 · May 17, 2017

I have a pair. For the first month, the tank was really cloudy depending on how much engineering they decided to do that day. They often will dig a burrow and one seals the other inside for a day or so at a time. I assume they are a mated pair and eggs are in the burrow. I love these guys. They are so fun to watch at work. Keep in mind anything you have on the bottom of the tank is subject to burying but they also seem to unbury the next day. Also make sure your rock structure is on the tank floor and not just on top of the sand. They can dig under the structure and cause a collapse. I have not had them fly bomb sand - I usually think of golden sleeper gobies doing that. If you want a fun goby that doesn't sift that much consider a pink spot watchman goby.

Adam113 · May 17, 2017

Mine is my favorite fish by far in the tank. Everyone who comes over loves and laughs while watching him at work nonstop. Here's a few shenanigans from "Gobes

First picture is about as bad as it's gotten as far as covering stuff with sand. I've never had any clouding issue though. I suppose if you have super fine sand you may.

Video is what Gobes does when somebody enters his house unwelcomed.

If you do get one. Please please please have a very established tank, or make sure he IS eating prepared food. Too many of these fish die due to starvation in a newer tank. Mine thankfully attacks any frozen food or ROE I feed. I can actually spot feed him from the pipette, which is entertaining.

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

mandarin417 said:
I have a pair. For the first month, the tank was really cloudy depending on how much engineering they decided to do that day. They often will dig a burrow and one seals the other inside for a day or so at a time. I assume they are a mated pair and eggs are in the burrow. I love these guys. They are so fun to watch at work. Keep in mind anything you have on the bottom of the tank is subject to burying but they also seem to unbury the next day. Also make sure your rock structure is on the tank floor and not just on top of the sand. They can dig under the structure and cause a collapse. I have not had them fly bomb sand - I usually think of golden sleeper gobies doing that. If you want a fun goby that doesn't sift that much consider a pink spot watchman goby.

From a scale of 1-10, how bad was the sandstorm during that first month? What would you rate it now?

Thanks for the replies everyone.

saltyfilmfolks · May 17, 2017

This will help too.

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

Adam113 said:
Mine is my favorite fish by far in the tank. Everyone who comes over loves and laughs while watching him at work nonstop. Here's a few shenanigans from "Gobes

First picture is about as bad as it's gotten as far as covering stuff with sand. I've never had any clouding issue though. I suppose if you have super fine sand you may.

Video is what Gobes does when somebody enters his house unwelcomed.

If you do get one. Please please please have a very established tank, or make sure he IS eating prepared food. Too many of these fish die due to starvation in a newer tank. Mine thankfully attacks any frozen food or ROE I feed. I can actually spot feed him from the pipette, which is entertaining.

Your sand definitely looks more course than mine.

Yeah I read that they need an established tank with plenty of sand. I have minimum rock work in a 90 gallon 4 foot tank. It's well established, maintained and looked after. Plenty of pods (I have a potters Angelfish) that picks at them all day long.

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
This will help too.

What's up man. Yeah I stir up sections of my tank weekly to kick up the settled detritus. I'll do it a little more aggressively to see what kind of mess can come from it.

Adam113 · May 17, 2017

USMC 4 LIFE said:
Your sand definitely looks more course than mine.

Yeah I read that they need an established tank with plenty of sand. I have minimum rock work in a 90 gallon 4 foot tank. It's well established, maintained and looked after. Plenty of pods (I have a potters Angelfish) that picks at them all day long.

You should be good to go. I'd still try to get him to eat prepared food as he can deplete even a 90g tank. Mine is only a 29g and he's fat and
happy right now since he loves to eat the food I feed.

One amazing thing is my sand bed has never looked better. I used to have to stir up the sand daily because it looked so disgusting. I haven't touched the sand personally since about the first week I had him, and that was months ago. This is my sand bed now. Totally clean. I did start manually supplementing pods at night almost weekly because I'm thinking he had depleted a large portion of mine.

mandarin417 · May 17, 2017

USMC 4 LIFE said:
From a scale of 1-10, how bad was the sandstorm during that first month? What would you rate it now?

Thanks for the replies everyone.

If 10 is bad and 1 is good, I would say it was a 9 during the first month and now about a 1-2.

USMC 4 LIFE · May 17, 2017

mandarin417 said:
If 10 is bad and 1 is good, I would say it was a 9 during the first month and now about a 1-2.

Thank you

alanbetiger · May 17, 2017

If you say 10 is as bad as adding new sand to a tank where the water is solid white and you can't see anything.
First few weeks 5.
After a month maybe a 1. It turns from just being a white cloud of "dust" that you can't see the individual particles to just super fine sand that you can see the separate particles and sink straight away instead of being a cloud. The dust would take a few hours to clear where as now within a minute or so the particles are already back on the sandbed.
I agree with others. Sleeper and Diamonds seem to go around the tank causing more of a mess. Yellow watchmen and Pink Spot typically stay put more and make less of a mess.