Six spot goby

[Burray]

We got a six spot goby about six weeks ago or so. She loves to eat and follows the bulb syringe when I feed so she eats well but is definitely loosing weight. I feed one frozen cube daily, giving half in the morning and the other half in the evening. I would like to feed her more but am worried about my Nitrates which run about 25 ppl. Along with her I have a clown fish, a wheeler goby, a fairy carpenter wrass and a scooter blenny. Also 2 cleaner shrimp about 8 snails and 8 hermit crabs and 2 narasius snails. My tank is 32 gal all in one. I have a protein skimmer and an extra tank 207 filter. The first pic is about six weeks ago and the other two from this morning.
Most recent parameters
Salt. 1.026
PH. 7.8
Nitrite. 0
Nyos Nitrate 25
Ammonia. 0.25
Alk. 7.0
Mag. 1140
Calcium. 410
Phosphate. 0.1
I do 5 to 6 gal weekly water changes, am using De-Nitrate and Phosguard. Is there anything I can do? I don’t want to loose her.

 

[blaxsun]

It sounds like you're feeding her a lot. I feed 3-4 cubes daily, but that's spread between 43 fish...

 

[i cant think]

+1 to the above - I feed 6 cubes daily but that’s with 10 fish in one tank and 9 in another tank.
Valenciennea do need feeding about 3-4 times a day IMHO. They really need feeding as their metabolism is so fast. Also, the Carpenters Flasher Wrasse (Not a fairy wrasse as they’re Cirrhilabrus) should not be in that size tank - I have got my own blue flasher which is very similar to the species you have and he uses every inch of my 4’ tank. I really recommend trying to find a larger tank for the carpenteri.

 

[Bucs20fan]

Something is amiss here, its generally not a usual thing for a sand sifter to be too far off of the sand bed. do you ever witness it sifting sand? I should always eat when you are feeding but it should be sifting sand basically all day when acting normal. Ive had several sand sifters and when they end up in the middle to top of the water column there is something going on that they dont like. Do you have another bottom feeder causing it stress? It should get a large portion of its diet from the microfauna in your sand bed.

 

[i cant think]

Something is amiss here, its generally not a usual thing for a sand sifter to be too far off of the sand bed. do you ever witness it sifting sand? I should always eat when you are feeding but it should be sifting sand basically all day when acting normal. Ive had several sand sifters and when they end up in the middle to top of the water column there is something going on that they dont like. Do you have another bottom feeder causing it stress? It should get a large portion of its diet from the microfauna in your sand bed.

+1 to this, now you mention it it’s quite odd…
It could be due to the size as Valenciennea are truly active fish and often need a 4’ tank or bigger for both the micro fauna in the sand to thrive and not be decimated instantly but also due to how active they actually are.
If you look at the sand in the first photo it seems quite new which is worrying as the fish should really be eating microfauna for the whole day and not just feeding on frozen.

 

[Bucs20fan]

Honestly I think your aquarium is too small for this species of goby. You have a lot of rockwork and corals that look great, but very little open sand bed for this fish to eat from. It is being stressed because it doesnt have enough intake of nutrients because it wont sift the sand you have either due to your other bottom dwellers or not enough space for it to efficiently sift sand. I recently nursed a blue headed goby back to health that was in a similar aspect like yours. It was in a tank with sand too large to sift and regardless of how much it was manually fed, you could almost see its bones, and it was swimming in the water column. Not residing on the sand bed. I would recommend you feed it as much as you responsibly can, and try to find it a new home. Your tank is not set up to support a larger sand sifter. on another note. Any pods and microfauna you have, is already being hunted down by your scooter blenny. You dont have enough real estate in your tank for two fish that feed primarily on pods and microfauna.

 

[Burray]

Wow I guess I am. Is there anything to help her be not so pinned?

Something is amiss here, its generally not a usual thing for a sand sifter to be too far off of the sand bed. do you ever witness it sifting sand? I should always eat when you are feeding but it should be sifting sand basically all day when acting normal. Ive had several sand sifters and when they end up in the middle to top of the water column there is something going on that they dont like. Do you have another bottom feeder causing it stress? It should get a large portion of its diet from the microfauna in your sand bed.

I do see her sand sifting but not all day. I have a wheeler goby but he stays on the rocks at one end at the bottom and gets nervous when he sees her come by. She has always stayed mid to upper tank. I got her cause the local store purchased her to see if I wanted since another fish I bought passed and they didn’t have where to put her. I thought she was too big for my tank but wasn’t sure what they would do with her so we brought her home. Not sure what could be stressing her. Thank you

 

[Bucs20fan]

There is honestly not much you can do in a tank that size. Ideally you would want a 4 foot tank for a goby that gets that size. Best course of action is do what you can until you can rehome it.

 

[Burray]

+1 to the above - I feed 6 cubes daily but that’s with 10 fish in one tank and 9 in another tank.
Valenciennea do need feeding about 3-4 times a day IMHO. They really need feeding as their metabolism is so fast. Also, the Carpenters Flasher Wrasse (Not a fairy wrasse as they’re Cirrhilabrus) should not be in that size tank - I have got my own blue flasher which is very similar to the species you have and he uses every inch of my 4’ tank. I really recommend trying to find a larger tank for the carpenteri.

Thanks for the information. I will feed three times instead of twice daily the one cube. As for the Carpenter Flasher Wrasse, I did online research and it said if I have a single one, tank size would move minimum 10 gal that’s why I got him and he seems to be happy eats great swimming around no one harasses him.