Engineer Gobies....aggressive?

TrishK

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We have a 180 reef tank. Besides the other fish we have a WG and a fire goby. Today at our fish guys shop (he’s been in business 40 years) convinced us to buy a couple eng gobies. One is about 4” and the other 3”. I’ve since read some horror stories of these particular gobies bashing in fishes heads if they come to close to their “tunnel”....deaths of chromis and clowns and scooters etc and the EG eating on them...finding bodies in their tunnels etc. now I want to take them back please tell me these fish are peaceful like our trusted fish guy says they are. He had them with clowns and has had them several weeks he said but they were also in a bare bottom tank so nothing to guard/protect.
 

ThRoewer

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They get quite large and, as their name suggests, like to do a lot of construction you may not agree with.
Aggression is not the same as predation! They are not aggressive, but being not aggressive doesn't exclude taking other tank mates as food if there is nothing better around. Like lionfish and groupers are not aggressive towards smaller fish, they just see them as food and eat them. But when they are not hungry they don't bother them.
Clownfish with eggs, on the other hand, hardly ever eat tank mates but they can be so aggressive that no other fish can enter their territory without risking a severe beating...

That said, I've never heard engineer gobies causing other trouble than rearranging the tank in ways that the owner doesn't agree with.
 

Tankkeepers

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Mine was never agressive was in a 125 display and over 12 inches long about 1 inch around but they do get rather large see above and rule of thumb is if it fits in its mouth it will eat it more then likely also they dig alot so if your rockwork is not stable they will topple it mine even went as far as moving smaller rocks from place to place was neat cuz everyday id wake up and the tank would be alittle diffrent was my 2nd fav fish first one being a diamond goby that played basketball with shells would get one the swim from one end bottom of the tank to the other end top and shoot them out of the water into the fuge next door kept findong shells on the floor and one day I saw him doing it and watch for over an hour as each time he did it he would watch to see if he made it then go get another 1
 
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TrishK

TrishK

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Okay...i don’t mind the digging really but they haven’t figured out that’s what they’re supposed to do yet. We have tons of sand and rock work but they just swim against the glass waiting to be fed. With the one being 4-5” I would’ve thought he has dug burrows wherever he came from. We’ll see I guess. All our fish are too big to eat currently so I won’t worry about it yet. Guess one can go in the Fuge and one can go in the fish only tank with bigger fish if they get too big.
 

Tankkeepers

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Lol fish are funny like that and when mine was full sized he didnt ever try and eat anything even the yellow clown fish I had so I wouldnt be to worried I kept mine well feed but again each fish is different
 

Etto

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Okay...i don’t mind the digging really but they haven’t figured out that’s what they’re supposed to do yet. We have tons of sand and rock work but they just swim against the glass waiting to be fed. With the one being 4-5” I would’ve thought he has dug burrows wherever he came from. We’ll see I guess. All our fish are too big to eat currently so I won’t worry about it yet. Guess one can go in the Fuge and one can go in the fish only tank with bigger fish if they get too big.
I have 3. They did they same for months. Just now started digging under the rocks.
 

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