Black spotted goby

[STOINKER2]

Well thats what it said on the tank in the lfs, but i cannot find any info on them.

The problem is my partner bought one last weekend for his tank which he had guppies, coral platties and a dwarf gourami in.
I wasnt sure the Goby would be suitable for the tank but the assistant in the shop assured us it would be fine.

Since then the Guppies are going missing and i blame the Goby.

Is he likely to have eaten them as now four have gone and we have looked everywhere in the tank and cannot find them.

We intend on taking the Goby back to the store and have seperated him from all the other fish for the time being.

 

[lmw80]

Yes, I am sorry to say that the culperit is almost certainly the goby. I have a goby in my brackish guppy tank to control the baby population of the guppys. He hasn't eaten the adults, but a previous goby I had did eat the adults.

I think it's a very wise idea to take the goby back and get something that will be more compatible with your community tank.

 

[Fruitbat]

Gobies, in general, are very predatory and many of them are also fin-nippers. Personally I absolutely love them, though I'm not keeping any at this current time. I stopped by my favorite lfs yesterday and saw a tank labeled 'Juvenile Pike Cichlid'. I really like Pike Cichlids and you don't see them that often so I walked over to take a look. Much to my surprise I didn't find a small Crencichla but a 4-inch Butis butis, the so-called 'Crazy Fish' or 'Duck-billed Goby'.

It took every bit of willpower that I could muster to walk away from that tank without buying that fish but I don't have a brackish tank set up and, though B. butis will do reasonably well in fresh water (I've kept them that way before successfully) I don't think the Rasboras in my 26 gallon would have appreciated the goby at all! Don't believe it when you look in Axelrod's Atlas of Tropical Fish and find the part about Butis butis not being dangerous to smaller fish. I've seen them engulf fish nearly half their own size and swim around with the tail sticking out of their mouth for hours on end!

 

[Pufferpunk]

Yes, a goby will eat any fish that will fit in it's biiiiiig mouth! 8O I bought 18 SAEs from a site to eat the algae forest in my 90g planted tank. Within 1 week they were all gone! Very expensive meal ($87) for my purple-spotted gudgeon (FW goby). I believe the gobies you are speaking of are knight gobies, which are BW fish. See: http://www.petresources.net/fish/misscel/sti_sad.html

 

[lmw80]

That is what I have in my brackish tank...they are also known as Fantail Gobys...I have never heard them referred to as black spotted gobys, but we all know fish stores tend to create names...

 

[Sati]

Much to my surprise I didn't find a small Crencichla but a 4-inch Butis butis, the so-called 'Crazy Fish' or 'Duck-billed Goby'.

I looked them up and the first thing I see is that they're on the red list.

 

[Fruitbat]

Yes....they are....classed as low-risk but near-threatened which is ANOTHER reason why it was so hard for me to resist it. I kept them before many years ago and I know how ravenous they are. No telling WHEN another one of these oddballs will come in!

 

[STOINKER2]

I took the Goby back on saturday. The guy in the lfs was very rude to me telling me that, gobies do not eat fish and there is no way he would of sold me a fish that would eat my others.

I told him that 5 of our guppies had gone missing and he tried to tell me that they probably had something wrong with them, died and all the fishes ate the carcuses before i could see.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Duhhhh!!! I hate dumb, ignorant fish store employees!

 

[STOINKER2]

The worst bit is he is the owner of the store, im beginning to have second thoughts about going there again with his attitude.