Bumble Bee Goby

[Fella]

Hi Fella --

Something like 15-20 years ago, I remember going to Wholesale Tropicals and a chap there was utterly convinced one his Oscars had died because it had eaten a bumblebee goby. (Quite what they were doing in the same tank is an issue that never became clear to me.) Anyway, he believed these gobies were poisonous, hence the colours. Can't comment either way as to the validity of that statement, but perhaps if other fish think they're poisonous, it doesn't really matter whether they are or not.

Cheers, Neale

To offer a different view, I successfully kept them together for a couple of years. I reckon the black and yellow stripes warded off the baddies...

It's possible, but I'm not sure how much I'd believe it. They've got warning colouration but I would have thought one of the gobiologists would have picked up on that by now.

I once made the mistake of keeping the goby with my archer fish temporarily, and the archer ate it almost immediately. I couldn't work out why the archer ate it but nothing else would. Most logical answer I could work out was that archers probably eat wasps and hornets above the water line and aren't bothered by the colours...



http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkO72XBnebc
Here is a video of the old setup I had.

 

[dnn3]

so after reading your responses i realize that all of you know a hell of a lot more than i do.so my next question is,would a bbg be alright in a 30 gal tank with a pair of blue german rams,a pair of swordtails,3 mollies,a clown plec,2 rubber lip plecs,2 angelic botia loaches and fire belly newt?

 

[nmonks]

Short answer is no, because you won't be able to get it to feed comfortably and regularly in a tank containing things like botias.

I'm a bit concerned with your mix of species. Newts need cool (room temperature, around 15-20 C) water since they're from Japan, whereas Rams are notoriously feeble and short-lived when kept at anything other than hot conditions (28-30 C). Swordtails don't like warm water, while Mollies do. You've also got a ridiculous range of water chemistry requirements here, and can't possibly be maintaining them all equally well in the one tank. Rams need water that is very soft and acidic to survive any length of time, something like pH 6, 5-10 dH. Mollies on the other hand must have hard, alkaline water, ideally with some marine salt mix; pH 7.5-8, 20+ dH.

In short, you've got at least 4 different sets of conditions required: cool for the Newt; hot and soft and acidic for the Ram; hard and basic and saline for the Molly; and moderately hard, neutral, middling temperature for everything else.

While you can certainly dump all these fish in the same tank and hope for the best, this is also a great way to store troubles for yourself in the future. If you can, sit down and think about which animals you like best, and read up on the specific requirements of those species.

Cheers, Neale

so after reading your responses i realize that all of you know a hell of a lot more than i do.so my next question is,would a bbg be alright in a 30 gal tank with a pair of blue german rams,a pair of swordtails,3 mollies,a clown plec,2 rubber lip plecs,2 angelic botia loaches and fire belly newt?

 

[Hayleamorgan]

I have had BBG's in my figure 8 puffer tank for a while now and the puffers tank no interest at all in them. It was the bbg's that fought between themselves for a while untill they set up their boundaries. providing they have lots of hiding places they get on great.

 

[dnn3]

neale,i would never dispute any thing you said but i have to tell you the newts story.i think you'll find it intriguing.our 30 gal tank used to belong to my girlfriends mother and she bought it about 15 years ago to put the goldfish from her goldfish pond in in the winter time.about 12 years ago my girlfriend bought the newt at wal mart for $5 because she thought he was cute and just put him the tank.she didn't know anything about him,she just thought he was cute.so he spent the summer by himself and the winter with a bunch of goldfish.the first time i seen him was about 5 years ago and even though i didn't much about newts i said to them i didn't think those could live under water and she shrugged and said he always has.so whenever i would go over there i would look for the newt and he would always seem just fine.about 2 and a half years ago her mom got tired of dealing with the pond and the tank and gave us the tank with everything including the newt and 15 goldfish of various size.i wanted to just get rid of the goldfish and restock it with some more interesting fish but my girlfriend said no because that's all she'd ever had.so slowly i watched them die off and then when they were gone i restocked the tank with more interesting fish.after a good cleaning because as you know,goldfish are nasty fish.so for 12 years he has lived completely under water.every once in a while i see him go up for breath of air but it's not very often.i have done a lot of research on him and nowhere have i read that he could live in the enviornment he has always lived in.