Had a gold head sleeper goby (Valenciennea strigata) for years in my 120. Did a great job but sometimes broadcast sand from above. Had to blow off the corals with a baster after. Now have a young blue dot sleeper goby (Valenciennea sexguttata) that keeps low to the sand. The blue dot is quite friendly.
Best sand sifter?
- Thread starter Rick47
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Do you have any experience with these guys?
I’m planning on getting two of them in the near future. According to Liveaquaria, they are considered difficult. Have you found that to be the case?
How big of a tank would you say is suitable for two of these guys?
Mikedawg
2500 Club Member
Very easy to take care of as long as you make sure to place some food on bottom for them. I turn off all pumps and squirt food with a turkey baster. My understanding is that they fight with conspecifics unless they are a pair. One I got is captive bred which is a big plus. Good luck, they are a lot of fun to watch and can move an amazing amount of sand and small rubble.
I would think 10 gals is big enough; they hop more than swim!
Mine eats pellets and a wide variety of frozen foods.
Mine has been really easy to take care of so far. I squirt reefroids with Julian's thing into the sand infront of his hole and make sure some food lands on the sand and he eats plenty. Constantly building, takes snails to reinforce his cave!
I think a combo of all the above is perfect with the exception of some gobies that spend all their time in their borrow. My 220 has 2 or 3 sifting stars, 3 conchs, couple nasarious and one diamond goby. You really need to plan up front for the diamond as they can move more sand than you really want but not as bad as the engineer goby which is at the extreme end. My tank is coming up on 2yrs old and I've never had to clean the bed except when i go bristle worm hunting.
I liked them when I had them, but I gave up on the sand sifting gobies after having 2 of them and neither making in my 75g tank that is about 1.5 years old. I don't think I had enough pods in the tank and they starved? I saw them eating mysis and anything else I tossed in the tank, but I don't think it was enough. Both got thinner, and thinner, and thinner. I was even breeding pods in my fuge and putting them in my display by the NNNs, but I am guessing my wrasses and others got them first??? Probably okay if you are planning on buying more pods. AND might just be my tank. As you can see, others do fine. I have the star and many, many nasaris snails that I really like.
MarineREEFpassion
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Diamond goby for sure! I have one in my 150 DT and just him alone keeps my white sand pristine. I also have a sand sifting start fish that keeps the deeper substrate clean that Jasper, my Goby can’t get to lol. And a few Tongan snails.
See Gee Sea
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I just got a brown barred sleeper (dragon) goby. I dig it the most!
