Yellow Clown Gobies question

[dekay]

Looking into getting a yellow clown goby as my next fish. Been doing some reading and most of them say they prefer tanks with acropora. But then when I visited a LFS, the owner/friend said that they're easy to keep, and they don't need acros to feel at home. As a matter of fact, he would prefer not to pair the two things together cuz they have a tendency to nip on the polyps. If any one of you have experience with this fish, please give me your input, cuz I went to Big Als yesterday to look at their reef setup which had this fish. The goby didn't move any more than 2 inches away from the acro he was in, albeit, it might have to do with the residence in the tank (black tang, six line wrasse, damsels etc.).

Another thing is, my tank is still relatively young, so I'm not going to put SPS corals in there anyways. Would a bleached dead acro do the job (the ornament type)? Or do I even need one?

[christyf5]

IME, clown gobies will perch on anything, rock, coral, they'll even attach to the glass. I have a clown goby (not the yellow one) and he perches on my sps all the time. Problem is they are only frags and he irritates them to no end as he can't fit his little butt into them. I think it may be a different story if I had an SPS colony. I only have two frags in there now and he still is having a grand old time perching on everything :razz:

Christy :)

[Samw]

I bought 2 for my main tank and they did awesome. They were happy and started eating flake and got nice and fat. I had them for a few months. But they also ate my acro frags which was no good. I lost some acro frags that way (I think, cuz they were fine until I introduced the gobies). I have some pictures of one frag before I bought the gobies, during, and after I sold the clown gobies and you can see how sad the acro looked with the gobies and how happy it was after I sold the gobies.

When I got my nano, I decided to buy a clown goby for it. The first one didn't eat flake and died. The 2nd replacement one didn't eat flake and died. The 3rd replacement one didn't eat flake and died. 3 different gobies from 3 different shipments. I had no luck with them in my nano.

So in my case, they did better in the tank with the Acros. Could be coincidence. I'm sure they do fine in other people's tanks though.

[Beverly]

I had a YCG in a 7 gal nano, and still have one in my 42 gal hex. Perches on anything and everything, but usually hangs out with our ocellaris clowns on their adopted pectinia "anemone".

Both fed well on Sally's frozen Marine Cuisine.

Here's the one in the 42 hex with the ocellaris and skunk clowns, who ALL hang out in the same small area in the tank:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/42gal-allclowns-1.jpg

[Seth]

They nip on acros for sure. When I got new frags, their polyds would extend for the first few days then never extend again except for night time when the gobies were asleep.

After removing the gobies, my polyds are always out!

[Beverly]

They nip on acros for sure.

Interesting... I have a lovely brown acro that my goby never touches. It's thriving, in fact :cool: The only thing I can think of that may be keeping my goby away from the acro is that it has an orange acro shrimp living in it.

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/42gal-alpheid-1.jpg

[dekay]

Just want to let you guys know I'm a proud owner of a YCG since last night. Of all places, I got it from Big Als. It was held captive in a 3 inch cubicle which was pretty sad; housed with another goby and a shrimp similar to the pic above. So I decided to save the poor thing. Right now it's hiding in a cave I built, not sure if he ate any of the brine shrimp this morning though. But I made sure he had a meal, or was eating, before I took him home :cool: