golden head goby

[1bigstud]

I have a 77 gallon tank which has been setup for almost two years now. Really Thick sand bed, Tons of live Rock. A couple weeks ago I bought a golden head goby from the store he looked well fed. Anyways he seems to be getting thinner but is constantly sifting sand and the tank is well fed with a good variety of frozen foods any advice???

[Gools]

Is he eating any of the food your are putting in? What kind of food are you feeding?

[1bigstud]

mainly frozen brine shrimp and plankton a little bit of of mysis (running low gotta restock). I cant tell if hes eating it or not whenever I pour food in the tank he hides though I have seen him nibble a couple pieces a couple times.

[Murminator]

I have the same fish with the same prob so I'm going to tag on

[Bob I]

Those are usually called Golden Head Sleepers. They usually do better in pairs. They feed by sifting sand constantly and eating worms and things found in the sand. There is usually not enough to find in the sand, so they often waste away from lack of food. Even if they stay alive and grow they still seem to die sooner or later. :sad:

[Gools]

Is he being bothered by any other fish in the tank? Have you tried adding Garlic to his food to try to get him to eat more? I feed mine maybe twice a week, but he mostly gets his food from sifting. What kind of substrate do you have?

[1bigstud]

the substrate is fine sand. He occasionally has a run in with the other fish from time to time but nothing out of the ordinary and he starts trouble just as much as he gets it so I dont think he's being harrased. Hmm garlic I've heard of people feeding fish garlic but not quite sure what the deal is. Do you use normal house hold garlic or some kind of extract??? Thanks alot for the feed back guys. Also those of you that have gobies what are you feeding them??

[Gools]

You can use household garlic, but a pain to deal with, or you can buy garlic from usually any fish store, add acouple drops, helps to stimulate feeding. I feed my sleeper goby, flakes, brike, mysis, bio plankton. but mostly he eats what ever he gets out of the sand

[Invigor]

would this scenario also apply to a yellow watchman goby?

[Quinn]

Get mysis, target feed the fish with a turkey baster. This is a requisite for any sleeper/maiden goby, in my mind (gobies that live on the sandbed and burrow). I can't speak for watchman gobies.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

My yellow watchman sifts sand, but it gets most of its calories from feasting on the mysis, bloodworms & brine I feed the 35g Hex. tank with. It's grown like stink, so it must be getting enough to eat :biggrin: Just have to make sure some food reaches the bottom of the tank since he's not big on swimming up into the water column to compete for his dinner.

JME,

Anthony

[sumpfinfishe]

Goby's will take anything usually, the problem is getting food down to there level. My mated pair of yellow watchmens alway's use to stay at the bottom until I increased the circulation about a year and a half ago, now the food is constantly moving throughout the reef and they have adapted by coming right in the middle of the water column to feed, they will even surface feed for the first few minutes along with two skunks, a perc and a six line.

Try using more mysis and spirulina as brine is just junk food.

[hockey nut]

Does your goby have a small blue stripe on his cheek? If he does you have a goldenhead/yellowhead sleeper goby ( valenciennea strigata ). To keep these fish for a good length of time you must have a very established sand bed. This fish can get to 7 inches. Much larger than a standard watchman goby.

As BOB_I said, they sift for worms and other types of food in your sand. They have been known to wipe out a healthy sandbed in smaller tanks then slowly starve to death. They have also been known to topple rock when sifting to much by moving the sandbed.

As previously said, try to get the food down to the goby and hopfully he will be interested. Overall they are a great fish..... if you can get them to eat. Oh ya, I recall hearing that it takes them awhile to start eating when introduced to new tanks as well. Hopfully that is the case.

Good luck and let us know how it is going

Cheers

[Scavenger]

The golden head sleeper goby in my tank is a virtual pig!! He eats or tries to eat anything that floats by. Favorites include mysis and plankton. In addition, he spends about 3/4 of his day sand sifting and the other 1/4 cleaning out his burrow. Grows like stink and always has a noticable panch. I know mine truely appreciated it when I opened up more sand surface area when I re aquascaped.

[Reefhawk1]

My second attempt at keeping a Golden head sleeper Goby ended last week. He or she constantly kept the sand bed clean but withered away slowly. It ate like a pig when I fed flake food, Mysis shrimp, Brine shrimp etc. I believe this species needs regular feedings throughout the day due to its activity level in the aquarium and lack of food in the sand bed over time

[Bob I]

As I said before, they don't usually live too long. I have a friend who had a couple in a six foot tank. They grew very rapidly, so they must have had enough food to eat. However, less than a year later they inexplicably died. :sad: