Peacock Goby - Didn't Last

[ZoddyZod]

Hello,

I got myself two Peacock Gobys (stunning fish) about a week and a half ago and one has been found dead this morning. Since adding to the tank both have seemed fairly timid, spending most of thier time hiding inbetween one particular plastic plant, occassionally venturing out. I had read that they are fussy eaters and need frozen/live food, but I've tried tubifex & brine shrimp along with flake/pellets/peas but nothing appears to have peaked their interest (it floats right past them). The LFS stated that they had only fed them flakes since receiving them.

They didn't seem too bothered by the rest of the tankmates (in sig) and mainly ingnored them.

tank stats were all fine as well (0, 0, 20) and the tank gets a 40% water change each week.

Anyone else kept these successfully in a peaceful community set up? Thinking about replacing this one, but only if I'm confident that I wasn't at fault.

 

[nmonks]

They aren't really community fish. Mine only ever did well in their own tank with surface-swimming dither fish (glowlight danios for example). Yes, they are poor competitors for food. Does need to be live food, at least initially. Mixed pond foods worked well for me: daphnia, cyclops, midge larvae, mosquito larvae, etc. Better to get them feeding, and then add tankmates, than to add them to a community tank and hope they pick up whatever the other fish miss. In busy tanks they may never settle down.

Water chemistry is somewhat important. Around neutral, soft to moderately hard water is required.

Cheers, Neale

 

[steelhealr]

Great post Neale. Good to see you are still at it. SH

 

[ZoddyZod]

Thanks for the info Neale,

I watched again today as food floated in front of its face without any interest.

I'll be returning this one to the LFS and hopefully someone can give it a more suitable home.

 

[kiriyama]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. The problem with Peacock Goby is making sure they are feeding, they are so shy that all the other fish will have chomped before these guys get there share, pH 6 - 7.5, do best in a well planted tank, start off with small frozen and live food...
Sorry for your loss, lovely fish....

 

[ZoddyZod]

Just took him back the LFS. Took me a good 35mins to find him, thought he'd died and been eaten. Then after a very close look at the filter, found his head peeking out upside down from a reccess in the filter bracket.

Hopefully someone will be able to provide a more suitable tank.

 

[ellena]

Just took him back the LFS. Took me a good 35mins to find him, thought he'd died and been eaten. Then after a very close look at the filter, found his head peeking out upside down from a reccess in the filter bracket.

Hopefully someone will be able to provide a more suitable tank.

I am thinking of getting some of these for a small peaceful community. I already have some endlers which I intend to have in there. They used to live with some celestial pearl danios which were totally timid and I don't think ever ate Maybe the gobies wouldn't be good with them either?

 

[hamfist]

The LFS stated that they had only fed them flakes since receiving them.

This is a very typical comment. They may well have been feeding them flake, but were they actually eating it ?

I bought some gobies recently from my LFS, and struggled to get them to eat anything once I got them home. Went back to the shop to ask them what they had been feeding them ... the answer was frozen bloodworm.

I had tried that already with no success.

The next day I went in to the LFS, as chance would have it, at feeding time. I questioned again about the gobies, and the chap offered to feed them while I watched. Lo and behold, the gobies completely ignored the bloodworm as the guppies and other fish in the tank mopped them up.

Moral of the story ... do not not necessarily believe what you are told by fish shop staff about what their fish eat !

Thankfully I have since discovered food which my gobies love (not peacock gobies BTW).