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Sand Sifter Goby Help

post #1 of 5
9/7/10 at 7:00pm
Thread Starter 

I am thinking of getting a goby and after some reading I think I want the Orange Spotted Diamond Goby. I want this fish mainly because he digs and sifts. Some people say the digging make your water dirty, but I welcome all diggers. First, what exactly does sand sifting do, what doues it "sift" from the sand? While I was reading, I saw that pistol shrimp make relationshipls and dig for some gobies. Does this apply to the Orange spot diamond goby? I also read that this goby can starve in a small tank. If I feed him just like I do tto my other fish, will he eat? If I have other diggers in my tank, will he become aggresive and bite them or just playfully take sand and rock away. And lastly, which gobies sift sand beside this one, which ones have the pistol shrimp dig for them, and what goby do yall recommend. Thanks for help.

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post #2 of 5
9/8/10 at 12:11am

I had a pistol shrimp once, pretty cool shrimp.They have a claw that closes really hard and makes a loud noise when it closes;hence the name.The sand sifting gobies dont stir up enough sand to be a problem as they are small fish; they will sift left over food from the sand as well as eat when the others do.I am not sure about aggression, but I had a pair of engineer gobies, a pair of twin spot gobies (one of my favourite) and yellow watchman goby. I dont know how big your tank is but these were in a 210g tank so plenty of room for all.

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post #3 of 5
9/9/10 at 9:05am

I have a yellow head sleeper goby that I absolutely adore! When I first got him and he started sifting, there was a lot of little debris from my gravel that stirred up, but it was filtered out so after a couple of days no more cloudy water. Did WONDERS for my red slime algae problem I had going on. He eats same as all of my other fish, but I dropped small pellets inthat sank to the bottom for him to make sure he was getting enough food. He was slightly aggressive at first, but once the hierarchy was established, things were fine. (as long as everyone stays away from his hole!) The only problem I would say that he causes is maybe too much sifting at times. He rearranged my gravel COMPLETELY and continues to do so to make himself more comfortable. I have bare bottom in the first 1-2" of my tank, and really deep gravel at my live rock. (he made his cave underneath my LR and continually takes gravel to fill in behind the LR so it's more secure) Gravel gets dumped on my sebae quite frequently, but luckily she just shakes it off and keeps on going with the flow. If corals are involved, this could become an issue. I know many ppl have returned gobies because of this. But he is SUPER fun to watch! Especially when he picks up my hermits to fill in holes in his cave.

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post #4 of 5
9/9/10 at 9:13am

I have a yellow head sleeper goby and have had him for about a year now. I do not let him stay in my coral/reef tank because of all his digging. He stays in my other fish/reef tank. But he is a cool fish to watch LOL just pisses me off sometimes with him throwing sand everywhere.

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post #5 of 5
9/10/10 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BW256S_SRT4 View Post

I have a yellow head sleeper goby and have had him for about a year now. I do not let him stay in my coral/reef tank because of all his digging. He stays in my other fish/reef tank. But he is a cool fish to watch LOL just pisses me off sometimes with him throwing sand everywhere.


I just (gave to friend) got rid of an Indigo Dottyback that would throw sand all over my Goblet!  It really pissed me off!  Cool fish but my Goblet is awesome!  Photo here is blurry but shows how pretty the Goblet is (it's only half open, it covers the whole rock when the Yellow Goby isn't sitting on it.)  <--also drives me crazy but doesn't hurt the coral....

 

DSCI0003.JPG

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