New Watchman Goby never in the sand

[chonsworth]

Yesterday (2023-02-08) I put in a new Watchman Goby with a pistol shrimp and a Splendid Dottyback (from reefbeauties.com) into my aquarium. They joined an azure damselfish, cleaner shrimp and 2 clownfish.

As I understand it, these gobies should almost always be in the sand or perching. But since I put mine in, he's done nothing but swim around near the top and sometimes "sit" on the side of my overflow column in the back. I seriously haven't seen him spend time in the sand! When introduced, I turned off the powerheads and lights for the afternoon/evening/night as well. Sand is the Special Grade Arag-Alive! Reef Sand

Here's some video of the behavior, I tried to entice him with some food too and he doesn't seem interested in eating either:




Any thoughts on anything I could do?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mine goes into the sand when it feels like it

 

[i cant think]

Yesterday (2023-02-08) I put in a new Watchman Goby with a pistol shrimp and a Splendid Dottyback (from reefbeauties.com) into my aquarium. They joined an azure damselfish, cleaner shrimp and 2 clownfish.

As I understand it, these gobies should almost always be in the sand or perching. But since I put mine in, he's done nothing but swim around near the top and sometimes "sit" on the side of my overflow column in the back. I seriously haven't seen him spend time in the sand! When introduced, I turned off the powerheads and lights for the afternoon/evening/night as well. Sand is the Special Grade Arag-Alive! Reef Sand

Here's some video of the behavior, I tried to entice him with some food too and he doesn't seem interested in eating either:




Any thoughts on anything I could do?

Adding fish when lights are off sounds like a good thing but it likely does more harm than good. I know people do this to introduce new fish into tanks with nasty fish like the larger Acanthurus tangs. But I generally find that introducing fish after lights out will send them into shock when the lights come on in the day.
Even if it’s just on a lower blue setting for the night, this doesn’t harm fish as much but when it’s completely off, then comes on in the morning it doesn’t often ramp up and lights tend to just ‘flick’ on when it’s morning. I have found this stresses the new fish out quite a bit compared to when they’re added during lights on (Ideally at the height of when the lights are on).

 

[AquaDaniel]

YWG seems to do this pretty common from what I learned online, likely due to some stress. Mine did the same thing a few times when other fish chased it and wouldn’t eat anything. It’ll go to sand bed when it feels comfortable. Make sure the tank top is covered