Fish for a 55 Gallon tank

[JTN54]

Hi y’all!

I was hoping I could get some good insight on this. I currently have a 55 gallon long tank and my current inhabitants are: 2 Ocellaris clowns, 1 yellowtail damsel, 1 flameback angel, 1 Melanurus wrasse, and 1 small algae blenny. I was thinking about adding a diamond watchman goby to soft my sand but doo you think I would be overstocking my tank?

thank you to anyone that replies!

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

I would absolutely get a diamond goby - love mine and he's a workhorse, keeps my sandbed super clean (besides also being a beautiful fish with a lot of personality). It's hilarious to watch him pick up any shells that he deems too close to his burrows and throw them, lol. A couple things though - diamond gobies (and other sandsifters) can starve in too young of a tank and can be difficult to get them to eat prepared foods. I have had 2, and never had that problem (he's probably the fattest fish in my tank right now), but I've heard of so many people who have gotten one only to have it slowly starve. How deep is your sandbed, and do you keep corals down low and/or on the sandbed? The goby WILL make a mess shoveling sand around and it does float around and land on corals, and can really be a pain to deal with (I have to blow all the corals on the sandbed or lower area of rocks daily or they get irritated). It's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept thought to have a white sandbed, lol.

 

[JTN54]

I would absolutely get a diamond goby - love mine and he's a workhorse, keeps my sandbed super clean (besides also being a beautiful fish with a lot of personality). It's hilarious to watch him pick up any shells that he deems too close to his burrows and throw them, lol. A couple things though - diamond gobies (and other sandsifters) can starve in too young of a tank and can be difficult to get them to eat prepared foods. I have had 2, and never had that problem (he's probably the fattest fish in my tank right now), but I've heard of so many people who have gotten one only to have it slowly starve. How deep is your sandbed, and do you keep corals down low and/or on the sandbed? The goby WILL make a mess shoveling sand around and it does float around and land on corals, and can really be a pain to deal with (I have to blow all the corals on the sandbed or lower area of rocks daily or they get irritated). It's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept thought to have a white sandbed, lol.

Thank you for the reply! My sandbed I’d say is an inch to MAYBE an inch and half at most. But this tank has been running for 2.5 years now. I used to have a Tomini tang and a royal gramma but they died during my tank move and the substrate is pretty dirty. I was told they’ll eat mysis but to also put pellets in the tank so they can scavenge on those. And yes I do have some corals in the sandbed but I’m willing to take that small risk. I just obviously don’t want to starve them.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

Thank you for the reply! My sandbed I’d say is an inch to MAYBE an inch and half at most. But this tank has been running for 2.5 years now. I used to have a Tomini tang and a royal gramma but they died during my tank move and the substrate is pretty dirty. I was told they’ll eat mysis but to also put pellets in the tank so they can scavenge on those. And yes I do have some corals in the sandbed but I’m willing to take that small risk. I just obviously don’t want to starve them.

Sure thing! You should be fine then - I'd say go for it! Mine is a pig - he eats mysis, pellets, and basically anything else I feed the other fish. He will actually dart up to the middle of the tank to try and grab the larger pieces of mysis, even though he just ends up spitting them out lol. I see him go around and clean up any small pellets that hit the sand too. They can be a little bit of a jerk sometimes as they mature - mine doesn't like when new fish enter his territory (basically the whole bottom of the tank) at first, and will chase, but that's about it. Then he gives up and settles down. He wasn't very big when I got him but now he's large and in charge, lol.