The Scissortail Goby is today's entry in the lexicon of Highly Underrated Fish. They are gorgeous, peaceful, fun to watch and easy to keep once acclimated; it's a shame more aquarium enthusiasts don't keep them. Scientifically, this fish is called Ptereleotris evides. Commonly it has a few more names, the most common of which is likely Blackfin Dartfish. Depending on where you are in the world, you might also hear it referred to as Arrow Dartgoby, Spottail Gudgeon, Two Tone Dartfish, and one of our favorite names comes from Australia where this fish is frequently called the Sailfin Hovergoby.
This name is super appropriate, both in how it looks, with their large beautiful dorsal fins and cartoonishly huge adipose & anal fins and also in their behavior. Once they are comfortable in their surroundings, they'll spend most of their awake hours hovering above the bottom, usually near cover. It’s beautiful to watch, and something totally different than what most fish bring to the home aquarium. Scissortails can be kept singly, but they also do well as mated pairs or in groups of five or more; the hovering activity will be more dramatic and more frequent the more fish there are. They also do well with other peaceful fish, Cardinals make perfect tankmates, as do peaceful Clownfish, Fairy wrasses, Firefish and others. Some Blennies will do very well with Scissortails, you want one that looks dramatically different, so they don't get territorial with the Goby. Certainly, avoid all aggressive fish.
Even large and very active fish (even if quite peaceful) aren't a great match as their activity will scare the Scissors into hiding; if an aquarist is going to have a problem with a Scissortail Goby, it's going to be them hiding during meal time, so we want to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen. Keeping the lighting lower than usual for the first few days is a good idea and initially feeding them from a darkened room also helps you hide from them. Once they realize your presence means mealtime, they'll stop hiding. They're planktivores, and so they are quite used to eating anything meaty that floats past. As long as they are out and about, getting them to eat isn't usually an issue! In house, we feed them a mix of meaty foods from Gamma. Bite size is an important consideration with these fish. We like the Brine Plus products (Garlic, Omega & Spirulina) as well as other smallish bites like Mysis, Copepods, Rotifers, Tubifex, even Mini Bloodworms. We also feed some of the new Nutramar Complete Crumbles, which offers a variety of food sizes to your fish, depending on how you handle the food. You should feed them at least three times a day. Once the fish are bigger than three inches or so, they'll be plenty large enough to eat the Nutramar Pellets, which makes multiple feedings so much easier, while really ensuring your fish get a perfect diet. Click here to learn more
This name is super appropriate, both in how it looks, with their large beautiful dorsal fins and cartoonishly huge adipose & anal fins and also in their behavior. Once they are comfortable in their surroundings, they'll spend most of their awake hours hovering above the bottom, usually near cover. It’s beautiful to watch, and something totally different than what most fish bring to the home aquarium. Scissortails can be kept singly, but they also do well as mated pairs or in groups of five or more; the hovering activity will be more dramatic and more frequent the more fish there are. They also do well with other peaceful fish, Cardinals make perfect tankmates, as do peaceful Clownfish, Fairy wrasses, Firefish and others. Some Blennies will do very well with Scissortails, you want one that looks dramatically different, so they don't get territorial with the Goby. Certainly, avoid all aggressive fish.
Even large and very active fish (even if quite peaceful) aren't a great match as their activity will scare the Scissors into hiding; if an aquarist is going to have a problem with a Scissortail Goby, it's going to be them hiding during meal time, so we want to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen. Keeping the lighting lower than usual for the first few days is a good idea and initially feeding them from a darkened room also helps you hide from them. Once they realize your presence means mealtime, they'll stop hiding. They're planktivores, and so they are quite used to eating anything meaty that floats past. As long as they are out and about, getting them to eat isn't usually an issue! In house, we feed them a mix of meaty foods from Gamma. Bite size is an important consideration with these fish. We like the Brine Plus products (Garlic, Omega & Spirulina) as well as other smallish bites like Mysis, Copepods, Rotifers, Tubifex, even Mini Bloodworms. We also feed some of the new Nutramar Complete Crumbles, which offers a variety of food sizes to your fish, depending on how you handle the food. You should feed them at least three times a day. Once the fish are bigger than three inches or so, they'll be plenty large enough to eat the Nutramar Pellets, which makes multiple feedings so much easier, while really ensuring your fish get a perfect diet. Click here to learn more
