Orange Spotted Goby Acting Weird

tldragoon · Jun 30, 2021

So I've had this Orange Spotted Goby for about two weeks now, bought from LiveAquaria. It has been acting weird since day one. Randomly throughout the day it will starting freaking out spinning in circles, then it'll swim vertically and upside down. Sometimes it'll even let itself get carried around by the current getting bumped into rocks or whatever gets in its way. Then it'll stop and be fine. The first night it did this I thought it would be dead by morning, but it was just sitting there in the morning. One other thing is I can't say I've ever seen it eat, but it must be to survive this long right? I've searched for any clues on what's going on, but couldn't find anything. Any ideas?

Jay Hemdal · Jun 30, 2021

tldragoon said:
So I've had this Orange Spotted Goby for about two weeks now, bought from LiveAquaria. It has been acting weird since day one. Randomly throughout the day it will starting freaking out spinning in circles, then it'll swim vertically and upside down. Sometimes it'll even let itself get carried around by the current getting bumped into rocks or whatever gets in its way. Then it'll stop and be fine. The first night it did this I thought it would be dead by morning, but it was just sitting there in the morning. One other thing is I can't say I've ever seen it eat, but it must be to survive this long right? I've searched for any clues on what's going on, but couldn't find anything. Any ideas?

That doesn’t sound good. Fish can go a long time without food, but they often then never start back up. What foods have you tried on it? What other animals are in with it and how are they doing?
Jay

tldragoon · Jun 30, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
That doesn’t sound good. Fish can go a long time without food, but they often then never start back up. What foods have you tried on it? What other animals are in with it and how are they doing?
Jay

I feed them either frozen mysis or frozen brine every night, the morning I rotate between pellets, masstick and frozen. Two clowns, bicolor Blenny, cleaner shrimp, Pistol Shrimp, conch and some hermits.

Jay Hemdal · Jun 30, 2021

tldragoon said:
I feed them either frozen mysis or frozen brine every night, the morning I rotate between pellets, masstick and frozen. Two clowns, bicolor Blenny, cleaner shrimp, Pistol Shrimp, conch and some hermits.

Oh - I recognize your name now, I just answered you over in the clownfish thread a second ago. Having two fish showing symptoms in the same tank could be a sign of a bigger issue, but this could also be unrelated.

The goby should be taking brine with no problem. Here is a thing - some fish are collected with sodium cyanide. It stuns them long enough to make them easier to catch. Gobies that hide in burrows are prime candidates for being caught in that manner. In some cases, the fish dies outright from the poison. In other cases, they live just fine in your aquarium. But in between those two extremes are a large percentage of fish that make it into the pet trade, but then die later on. The symptoms can vary, but not eating and neurological symptoms are pretty common. While I can't say for sure this is your gobies issue, it easily could be. Sorry....this has been an issue with marine aquariums as long as I've been involved, going back to the late 1960's.

Jay

tldragoon · Jun 30, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
Oh - I recognize your name now, I just answered you over in the clownfish thread a second ago. Having two fish showing symptoms in the same tank could be a sign of a bigger issue, but this could also be unrelated.

The goby should be taking brine with no problem. Here is a thing - some fish are collected with sodium cyanide. It stuns them long enough to make them easier to catch. Gobies that hide in burrows are prime candidates for being caught in that manner. In some cases, the fish dies outright from the poison. In other cases, they live just fine in your aquarium. But in between those two extremes are a large percentage of fish that make it into the pet trade, but then die later on. The symptoms can vary, but not eating and neurological symptoms are pretty common. While I can't say for sure this is your gobies issue, it easily could be. Sorry....this has been an issue with marine aquariums as long as I've been involved, going back to the late 1960's.

Jay

Yes, you are helping me with multiple issues. This is my first take, it's only 3 months old. I'm just trying to do things right, ask questions from more veteran aquarists and hopefully do right by the livestock I have. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me diagnose these issues. I'll just continue to keep an eye on the goby and hopefully he can pull through with the amount of fight he's shown maybe he'll be alright.