Best breed of goby?

[Simon]

Hi, I need a sand sifter Goby for the bottom of my tank. Can you recomend a certain breed that will be the best for the job or are they all the same? Thanks. Simon :mrgreen:

[total*clowns]

I know some are far better then others. From my experience the more colourful the goby the less likely it's going to work hard for you if you get my drift.
I have a pink striped goby ( all white really with faint lines through him) he has always got his mouth full !!! :D HTH

[Blue]

blue cheek gobies are nice but they get to about 7" and spit sand onto corals so i don't promote these fish. Most gobies will eat ornamental shrimps apart from the yellow or green rock goby eg . but they are not sandsifters. if you have a fish only system the bluecheek will be fine , if not they I would maybe try sand swifter starfish or cerith snails - vibex snails etc. Hope this helps . regards chris :)

[Paul P.]

I had a blue cheek who did a great job and was fairly careful where it spat the gravel but unfortunately it went the way of quite a lot of blue cheeks and just withered away and died despite a deep sand bed and no matter how much food it ate after about 14 months

at the moment I have 2 Orangespotted gobies(Valenciennea puellaris) in different tanks both doing fine, they tend to stay still when sifting so don`t spread the sand about too much at all, they dig burrows to sleep in/escape to and just before they go to bed build up the entrance so they can only just squeeze in its great to watch and ive no complaints with them so far,
they are not quite as fragile long term as the blue cheeks but still require a deep sand bed and can sometimes take a couple of weeks to realise that the stuff you are throwing in every day is edible :roll:

just to add to Chris`s comment about sandsifting starfish, yes they do a great job but will soon strip a sandbed almost clean of life (unless you have a large tank) and could possibly eat itself out of food (a hungry sandsifting starfish doesn`t usually leave the sandbed unless, so if its on the glass it may need supplementary feeding)and it wouldn`t help a goby in its search for food either if you kept one with it, to help combat this you can bury bits of prawn, cockle etc in the sand for the starfish and/or goby to find and eat.
hth

[Macca]

H Paul welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing your views with us. Hopefully it will get busy on here once the word spreads :-D


James

[Paul P.]

cheers James, I do believe we have done business in the past mate, bought a load of snails from you if my rapidly failing memory serves lol

[Blue]

Good info Paul. Thanks.
I shall make sure that I ask for tank speks in future.

[oakwell]

i bought a spotted sleeper goby from aquarius koi and hes doing a great job for me also eating loads of frozen!!

[Tangman]

Hi I have the blue cheeks and they do spit sand all over, but if you can get a chalk goby they dont spit sand but you need plenty of aged sand for them also they will need feeding. HTH. Eric

[Tetley]

I have a "Watchman" Gobi

When I first ingtroduced him he was very shy - not any longer, now boss of the tank - and keeps my sand turned over & eats like a pig - purchased form one of the sponsers on site.

Ian