A little bummed out

Pbh-reef · Aug 29, 2019

I just finished quarantining a hifin goby, added it to the tank two nights ago and now he’s nowhere to be seen. I sealed the cover perfectly so there’s no chance he jumped, I assume the candy cane (A. randalli) pistol shrimp already in the tank killed him instead of bonding with him. I have a half a mind to lift up my rocks and see if he’s actually hiding, but my guess is without seeing him for two days in a 10 gallon cube there’s only a very small chance he’s hiding with the shrimp in the cave. This post isn’t so much looking for advice since not much I can do, in fact I know the best thing I can do is not disturb the rock work and wait and see. I just wanted to share the sad feeling/frustration

motortrendz · Aug 29, 2019

We've all been there. It's very frustrating. It may just be hiding and keeping to itself as moving out of qt into a display can be overwhelming for a fish. I had a tail spot goby dissapear after he went into my tank we wrote him off and 2 .inths later saw him for 2 seconds. I actually forgot about him. After another month he finally started coming out when feeding. He made a burrow in the back of my reef and kept to himself. Now hes out all day but goes to his borow at night which is still in the back of the rocks where noone can see him. So here's to hoping all is well. Good luck bud.

Pbh-reef · Aug 29, 2019

motortrendz said:
We've all been there. It's very frustrating. It may just be hiding and keeping to itself as moving out of qt into a display can be overwhelming for a fish. I had a tail spot goby dissapear after he went into my tank we wrote him off and 2 .inths later saw him for 2 seconds. I actually forgot about him. After another month he finally started coming out when feeding. He made a burrow in the back of my reef and kept to himself. Now hes out all day but goes to his borow at night which is still in the back of the rocks where noone can see him. So here's to hoping all is well. Good luck bud.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I guess with such a small tank it’s hard to remember the fish is also super small, I’ll hold out hope

Pbh-reef · Aug 29, 2019

Sooooooo..... he's in the back chamber of my nuvo 10, i saw him wriggling when I check with my phone's flashlight. I drained the back but because section's 1 & 2 are elevated above the actual bottom of the back compartment I can't get him out! Gonna have to figure out a way to seal the 3rd section when he's there so he can't get under sections 1 & 2.

as I type this a pygmy perchlet I've been Qting is dying from what I think are internal parasites that I couldn't treat because he ate so little. Truly one of most frustrating evenings of my life with the tank...

that said, of course I am happy the goby is alive!

Dierks · Aug 29, 2019

Mixed emotions on that last post... Glad you found the one!!

Pbh-reef · Aug 30, 2019

Got him! My husband saw him in chamber one this morning and I scooped him out with my hand! He’s in a breeding box for now until I figure out how to make the slits of the overflow goby proof! What a naughty fish!

BlueDamselReef · Aug 30, 2019

I was JUST about to post..."did you check overflow?" Haha Awesome that you found him and he's okay!

Kyuss414 · Aug 30, 2019

Glad you found him as well.

Years back when I kept more predatory tanks I picked up a young/small chain moray, similar to a snowflake just different markings. When I moved him from QT to my display, he went straight to the overflow and swam right between the teeth. ;Meh In my case it meant he just took a ride down to the filter sock. I didn't want him doing it when I wasn't around though and spend any amount of time in there getting battered around by all the flow.

What I did was take some of the 1/4" mesh I had left over from my mesh cover and affixed it over the overflow teeth with some glass cleaning mag-floats, basically using the magnets to keep it in place. Not sure if that will work with the goby (the eel was narrow, but tall, so it kept him out) but just throwing it out there. I was eventually able to remove mine once he got too big to fit between the teeth.