Clown Gobies

[Tomoko Schum]

Advanced Aquriust Magazine just reported a new finding about coral gobies protecting acropora.

According to the article, it not only protects acros from Butterfly fish and other coral eating fish but aslo reduced incidence of parasites with its mucus covering that acts as parasite repellent.

As some of you know, the cute little yellow clown gobies tend to rip off acropora tissues to make a nest to lay eggs on and keep some acros from extend their polyps fully. But if it can keep parasites away, it may be a good enough trade off...

Here's an old but very good article about clown gobies.

 

[WesW]

Thanks for sharing Tomoko!

 

[Dowtish]

I have a green clown goby in my 10 gallon nano, and it lives in my xenia. It's an all softie tank, so no worries about any acros. They are awesome fish with great personalities.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

My adventure with yellow clown gobies is not working out really well lately.

When I bought the first one, it went into my blue acropora and was looking really cute. He stayed there most of the time and was really happy.

A trouble started when I brought home a small mate for it. They are bidirectional sequential hermaphrodite. So they paired up fine. The problem is the cute little newcomer started chewing on my prized pink milli with blue tips. The big one joined in later.

I am trying to train them like I do with dog and cats by spraying water with a turkey baster when I find one or both of them in the milli. They leave the milli quickly when they are shot with a strong blast of water. They even move on their own when I look and hiss at them (like I am intimidating the fish like a cat.) However, since I don't have a positive reinforcement tool, I suspect that they sneak back in soon after I leave the room.

So, my experiment worked out only half of the way. They are like Pavlov's dog and tries to swim away when they see me. I just can't get them to stay away by offering a reward.

Does anybody have a good idea or do I just have to evict them out of my tank by sucking them out with a hose pipe?

 

[markkazdad]

If you decide to evict them, I would be interested in them.

Did you try feeding them in a different area of the tank as positive reinforcement? I would imagine this might not work well because of the likelihood of overfeeding everything.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

To be honest, I've never seen them eat any frozen or prepared food. They have big round tummies on them. Must be full of the polyps and skins of my pink milli :mad2:

You'd be horrified with the nonchalante way that I feed my tank h:. I don't even stop my powerheads. The food gets blown around all over the place, and my poor fishes have to chase bits and pieces of food flying around everywhere. They sure can use some exercise, though, judging from the girth of their bodies. :snicker:

 

[markkazdad]

I don't turn off flow either.

I learned with the mysis shrimp that they are large enough to get stuck to the filter intake and blown through the powerhead, so maybe next time I will try chopping them with a razor blade a little bit.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Ssshhh. You know some people are a lot more meticulous, laying one or two pieces of mysis near the mouth of their LPS's and target feed their other corals with a coral feeding tool.

 

[markkazdad]

I think someone could adapt the technology used for homebrew 3-D printers and pick-and-place robots to automate coral feeding. Just plot the location of the corals on a 3-D grid and let the controller do the work. (Version 2.0 can add the computer vision to jam the mysis down the coral's mouth when it's open.)

Some foundational work: 3D Coral Computer Imaging Video Killed the 2D Crude Linear Metrics Radio Star

 

[pickupman66]

Clown Toby? Same as citron? If so, never again will I have those with acropora. Coral munchers.

And my fish prefer to be fed with everything on. Especially the anthias.

sent from my Galaxy with Tapatalk 2