Violet Goby (Dragon Fish) Eating Problems?

[HotStuffGal]

Hey Everyone I'm Scarlett!

Getting to the point. I Bought a Violet Goby (Sometimes called 'The Dragon Fish') I have had one in the past who died when swallowing a peice of gravel.

Gobys have a mouth that curves up and they must almost get on a totally vertical angle to get the food I drop in (Shrimp pellets) There for making eating a hard job for him.

Another problem is I Have a raphel Cat (sp?) Who spazzes when the top of the tank opens (He sticks his head out of the water(yes I am serious) Awaiting food) He Eats EVERYTHING. Seeing how the Goby is slow I am afraid he is not going to eat before the rapheal(sp?) does and thus will die.

Any Info on how I should go about solving this problem would be great. He is perfect (color, shape of fins everything) and I will soon have a picture for all of you, Thanks again `Scarlett

 

[CFC]

The goby will need to be moved to a tank where it will not be out competed for food, dragon gobies are filter feeders that need to be fed small live and frozen foods which they ingest by gulping in mouthfulls of water, they are practically blind and so take a long time to get to any food offered, really they are best suited to a species tank or one with very small fish like bumble bee gobies. To make matters worse for you they are also brackish fish and need a lot of salt added to the water to remain healthy, far more than your raphael cat can tolerate. Unless you can set up a new tank (or have a established brackish tank set up) then i suggest you return the fish to wherever you purchased it from, these are specialised feeders that need more care than a standard community fish and not just something odd looking to make a community tank more interesting

 

[SirMinion]

As always, there are exeptions to any rule:

Our Violet gobies are in a community tank with a lot of hungry other fish, yet they still get plenty to eat.

As an experiment, I put just one sinking catfish pellet in the tank (the gobies love them) to see who'd get it.

On the way down, it got picked at by the gouramis & tetras, then the clown loaches found it once it hit the sand.

Within a few seconds, one of the violet gobies appeared from his cave at the other end of the tank, gulping water to taste the direction the food was in. Despite being nearly blind, he homed straight in on the lone pellet, pushed the loaches and cories out of the way, juggled the pellet into his mouth and reversed the length of the tank and back into his cave.

Violet Gobies are avid burrowers and will not do well if they cannot dig, In my experience & opinion, they must be kept on sand in order to thrive - this also means that they cannot accidentely swallow gravel.

Also, as CFC says, most violet gobies found in stores are actually brackish and not suited to a freshwater tank. There is a sub-species that is happy in freshwater though, and I can only assume that this is what we have, as ours are thriving.
The vertical striping on their flanks is less pronounced than in pictures of other people's gobies I've seen, which I understand is an indicator that they might be the freshwater variety.

 

[HotStuffGal]

Thanks everyone!

I Do have sand in my tank and Thank God I Just Saw Him Eat.

If The Problem gets worse CFC I Might have to return him hopefully not though

 

[Koda]

I have one I got a few weeks ago and have had the same concern about him getting enough food.One of the things I do is to use my frog baster to shoosh frozen bbs and bloodworms into his favorite hangout.I wish he'd catch on like my frog has and realize that the appearance of the baster means food.But so far he still shys away from it.My frog gets excited just at the sight of the baster in my hand and eagerly comes up for his food


My LFS has sleeper and blue spot gobies in today and it was so tempting.But I want to make sure I am giving the one I have good care before I even think of more.

Koda

 

[Clare]

We also feed JMC High Protein Fish Food, the fine grade stuff. You have to be careful not to over load the tank with it because it is so fine but it is too fine for most of the fish to get. This means, it ends up floating through the water for ages and the gobies take it all in as they filter feed.
It works for the elephant noses tiny mouth too.

By the way, anyone ever seen a small elephant nose take a whitebait? We have!! He sucked onto it, dragged it into his cave and then couldn`t do anything with it, bless. It was quite sad really, although he does get plenty of food.

We also very very finely chop mussel, prawn and cockle. It takes ages to get it really small but then there is a good amount of it in the tank and the gobies take it in. They do know when it is feeding time now before we even open the tank, the light goes off in the tank above them and then they start waiting.
Hopefully everyone elses will start to realise feeding time too if you keep it regular.
Clare

 

[Clare]

This is a note to Koda, referring to Sleeper Gobies, beware.
Most Striped/ Pacific Sleeper Gobies grow to 20" plus, they will slaughter most things in the tank to eat. They are voraciously greedy fish and the fact that they sleep a lot, hence the name, belies their true nature.

This is not ALL sleeper gobies of course but these are fish we would also like but would never keep because of their nature. Maybe you already knew this and had a seperate tank but i thought i`d better warn you as most LFS do not label with the correct latin names.
Look on Aquaria Central web page for more info.
Clare

 

[Koda]

This is a note to Koda, referring to Sleeper Gobies, beware.
Most Striped/ Pacific Sleeper Gobies grow to 20" plus, they will slaughter most things in the tank to eat. They are voraciously greedy fish and the fact that they sleep a lot, hence the name, belies their true nature.

Thanks Clare...I wouldn't have known that and my LFS is usually not too well informed about the fish they carry.Before I got my dragon I had to come here for info as they knew nothing at all about them


Thank goodness for TFF

Koda

 

[HotStuffGal]

Thanks everyone For The Info!!