Violet (dragon) Goby

[Puriti]

I was at petsmart and I was looking at the Dragon Gobies (AKA Violet Gobies) and I had researched the fish before so I thought I'd get one for school to try out (they're lacking a lot of fish types and every one seems to like my carnivorous fish...) and I know that some sites say their brackish and the sign at petsmart says that they need some aquarium salt but I was wondering if they could live in pure freshwater (We do have brackish tanks if need be) and if there's anything else I should know. I know for a fact they weren't kept in brackish water at petsmart -___-...I found a few good sites in my research that gave me a pretty good idea but I kinda just wanted to hear any personal stories or whatever I should know...cuz I'll probably have to take care of the fish at school because people figure it's "my" fish and don't do anything really with it @__@ like they did my senegal bichir...

 

[onah]

well i had one for a few months(i know iknow,lol) but he did great in the freshy tank i had him in, he bite off my guppies tail, but my gup since way out lived him, lol. ok but not to get off subject cool fish, love to hide, but mine loved to come out and say high right out in front, mine was like 9-10 i think, i dont remember i did a memorial post when it happened, but really cool fish IMO.

 

[hc8719]

unless your dedicated to eventually having a brackish tank, and using sand (their mouthes sometimes get torn up with gravel because their filter feeders).

honestly, i wanted one for a long time, and when i got one, i found out brackish water isnt aquarium salt, but ocean salt, and that they get an unhealthy slime on them if not in brack water as they get older

how big is your tank?

 

[Puriti]

It's going to school so it'll be whatever they can put him in. Right now he's temporarily in my 10 gal that doesn't have gravel. The brackish tank we have up at school right now is a 29 gal but it's got a mudskipper in it and some of my mollies they acclimated into it. We used to have another one that had another mudskipper in it but he died. I have to talk to one of the foremen to see what we can do for him but it'll probably be his own freshy tank in the wall unit for a while or we get him his own brackish tank when we have one set up or stick him in with the mudskipper which I'm not sure would be a great idea...@__@ If worse comes to worse I can always get a tank and get some ocean salt. Not a big big deal. He's at least got somewhere to go no matter what happens lol

 

[coldmachineUK]

Gobies are amphidromous fish which means in the wild they have migratory patterns which take them (at various stages of their lifecycle) between water of varying salinity. Usually gobies tend to live out their adult lives in freshwater, breed there, and the larvae is transported into saltier water where the fish develop until juvenile at which time they swim back up to freshwater.
This is common behaviour for gobiidae in general but violet gobies would do better in a brackish setup compared with a FW setup. I've kept BBGs in freshwater without any problems, but violet gobies come from slightly brackish water around the Gulf (Georgia to Florida, etc.) and you would therefore be best setting up a brackish tank for them.

A 29G is far too small for this fish as well, unfortunately. Potential size (max recorded) is 24".

In terms of maintaining salinity: you need marine salt, not aquarium salt (which is a tonic salt that doesn't contain the necessary minerals), and a refractometer.

I recommend this site: http://gobiidae.com/

 

[Puriti]

Well I talked to the people at school and we were gonna put him in the 55gal BUT...he randomly died overnight so I gotta bring him back for warranty at petsmart. There was another one at Petsmart that was acting strange anyways that this one was with so I'm not entirely suprised

^^; and I know it would be marine salt... o.o I take it a lot of people think it's aquarium salt since a lot of you keep telling me that ^^; lol We have a big bucket of the stuff at school....so messy @___@ and so annoying!