Worried about my new aurora goby

adonis311

adonis311

Member
So I just added a beautiful 2 inch Aurora goby to my reef tank. Acclimated him the way I do my other fish, by dropping ice in his bag and then quickly dumping the entire contents of the bag into my tank and watching as he shivers it all off.
Just kidding. He gets dripped for 3 hours with his own little bucket after a week in the hospital tank hotel all to himself. Then after his 3 hours are up, he gets put back in the bag and floated around for 10 minutes.
I know it's late and I'm the new guy, so i'll get straight to the point. He's not quite the eccentric party going extrovert I'd like him to be. He really has done nothing but take refuge underneath a large piece of brain coral, which is fine. Didn't really want to buy another "behind the scenes" lifeform, and was looking for something that I could at least catch a glimpse of as I'm gazing into my tank from my comfy couch across the room, but if that's his thing, then so be it.
My main concern is that as far as I can tell, he has made no attempt to feed for the past 3 days, which is when I start worrying. Don't want to rush him and stress him out, but I really don't want to lose an expensive goby because I can't walk him through the new guy in the tank process.
So anyone out there have any ideas as to how I can either encourage him to feed on his own, or at least secure food which is easily accessable to him when he's ready to eat?
Tank specs below:
75 gal saltwater
Filtration: 2x Emporer biowheel filter, reef octopus 800 p. skimmer
Nitrates: 0.0
Ammonia: 0.0
Nitrites: 0.0
PH 8.4
Salinity 1.022
(tested moments before this post)
KH=10
and blah blah blah reef specific tests are all normal.
106lbs of live rock, plus 2 inches of live sand.
Lighting is a coralife beast that cost me $800 but i cant remember the name
tank is 2 months old.
Tankmates:
Lyretail chromis (acting passive)
Blue-green Chromis (top level swimmer, no interest in the bottom, ever)
Royal Gramma (territorial, but the goby in question is no where near his turf)
Sixline Wrasse (merely inquisitive, shows no signs of harassment)
Short spine sea urchin, the usual host of crabs and snails in a reef tank, some tiny starfish, and a few patches of button polyps and a brain coral.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by adonis311 http:///t/389310/worried-about-my-new-aurora-goby#post_3439958
So I just added a beautiful 2 inch Aurora goby to my reef tank. Acclimated him the way I do my other fish, by dropping ice in his bag and then quickly dumping the entire contents of the bag into my tank and watching as he shivers it all off.
Welcome to the site....I have never heard of acclimating a fish like that. ICE???? Why would you do that?
I remove a little water form the new fish's container and add the same amount from my DT back into the container....every 15 minutes for about an hour, and then net the fish out and release it in the DT or QT depnding on where the fish is going...but ice???
At any rate, if he was fine and eating in the QT, he should be fine in the DT unless your shock methods was just too much for him. Leave it alone and let it decide if he is safe to come out when he is good and ready.
 
adonis311

adonis311

Member
The ice bit was a little joke. I would NEVER hurt a fish like that. At any rate I really want to keep checking on him but I feel that if I keep moving the rocks it will just make things worse.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
Welcome!
Leave him alone and just observe. When you feed, turn off filtration and squirt some food near where's he's been hanging out to give him a better chance at eating some of it.
Did you see him eat at the store?
Keep an eye on your sixline wrasse, they can be little demons, especially to newcomers. You might not be seeing any aggression, but it could still be taking place.
Edit:
I happened to own this goby, more commonly referred to as a Pinkbar Goby. They're really reclusive. Honestly, I've had mine for about 6 months, and for the first 3-4, I never saw her eat, never saw her at all. I thought she was dead. It takes them a VERY long time to acclimate to a new tank. Thus far, I've never seen a fish take longer to acclimate, and NOTHING was harassing her. My husband and I finally caught a glimpse of her one night when all the lights where off and it was about 4 am, or we wouldn't have even known she was still in there. They eat a lot of their food once it's landed in the substrate, at least this has been what I have observed. Just give it a long time to get comfortable. It will start to get used to you, mine comes out more and more now, but is still a skiddish fish.
 
adonis311

adonis311

Member
A mixture of garlic pellets and 1/4 of a cube of sepa...surpa...spire....Spirulina with mysis and brine shrimp soaked in garlic for about 5 minutes every other day. The pellets they get every day. There's also alge flakes for the crabs and snails to snack on and the fish like to tend to peck at that too. So I tried rubberbanding frozen spirulina to a rock and sitting it outside his mancave in his brain coral but the wrasse thought it was for him and...nom nom nom...so much for that idea. Made for a happy sixline though. So what you're saying is he's just a very skiddish fish? What else should I know about him that my LFS didn't inform me about? I'm not a new tank owner, but I kind of jumped the gun on this buy, and now I'm paying for it. I really like him though and don't mind if he's shy as long as I can confirm from time to time that he's not rotting away in my tank and spreading the plauge about my reef tank.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
The brine and mysis is what he's going to eat. But yeah, they're skiddish, don't expect to see him much, at least not for quite some time. At least you know where yours is hiding out. Mine is in a 180, he bolted into the rocks not to be seen again and I was convinced it was dead.
 
adonis311

adonis311

Member
Haha. Yeah, thanks :). After I posted that I was afraid I was going to get a call from the SPCA though from someone taking me too seriously, and look. Someone took me too seriously haha. It's all good flower, at least you're passionate.
 
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