Chalk Gobies (Mated pair) Starving!

kwamhoff · Feb 3, 2013

So i bought a mated pair of Chalk Gobies and I believe they are starving. In 3 weeks they have lost some of their girth and I am concerned. They are not dead yet no sunken bellies or bones showing... Just getting narrower. After reading and searching the web for information on them (little to none). I have decided to try an experiment. I have injected cyclopeze an mysis shrimp amd some phytoplankton into the sand bed in about 5 different places... They immeadiatly went to theose spots and started sifting like crazy digging deep into the bed. While i only have a 1.5" bed its not to far. Does anyone have any other suggestions about what i can do to help these guys... different food? feeding station? How often should i do this? I really loves these guys and they keep my sand bed amazingly clean but i don't want them to die...

kwamhoff · Feb 3, 2013

HELP!!! So maybe someone has a different name for these and suggestions of feeding????

So this is a cell phone picture of them. They are never more than 4" away from each other and if they get tofar away they swin fast to get back to each other.. Its cute! But i want to make sure they don't starve like some of these guys do.

HELP!!!

ShannPeach · Feb 4, 2013

Have you tried any live foods, live enriched live brine or blackworms? Something to get them in the feeding mode and going after something not in the sand bed? I was able to get a stubborn blackcap basslet that was not eating first to go after live blackworms, then he would eat them out of the tongs, and one day he began to aggresively eat anything offered off the feeding tongs.

My first suggestion is the live foods and see what sort of response you get that way. You may also want to consider deworming. Its possible that they both have internal worms and the food they are getting isn't going so much to them, but rather to internal parasites they are carrying.

Greg@LionfishLair · Feb 4, 2013

This is a typical problem with "sandsifter" fish and inverts...they "sift" because they're eating the microfauna from the substrate. Your photo suggests that your tank is still quite immature.

What you're doing is good to keep them going, but they do need to be weaned onto prepared/alternative foods for them to survive. As ShannPeach mentioned, live blackworms might work. Do feed them out sparingly tho, as they don't survive long in SW. If you can get the fish to recognize a few foods as such, you can begin trying different foods until you have a good variety you can rotate.

Greg@LionfishLair · Feb 4, 2013

I just thought of something else you might try. Get some frozen mysis and thaw it in a bit of SW (if you use FW, the mysis will fly all over the tank). This will allow you to "pour" the mysis down a tube (a UGF downtube works well for this), and the mysis will settle into a little pile. Your fish my eat from that pile without you having to bury it.