Am I able to pair my Engineer goby while he is still young?

U

urbanrat84

New member
Hi guys,

Haven't been able to find the answer to my question online so I thought I'd see if anyone can tell me.

I have had an Engineer goby for 9 months - it started as a small pelagic juvenile and is now 1/4 grown with its adult pattern mostly formed but still developing.

There were originally 2 together but a month ago they started fighting and taking big bites out of each other so I now have them housed separately. I am assuming they have turned out to be the same sex and I've lucked out there.

I could rehome both and get a new group of Engineers to form a pair, however I'm quite attached to one of them and I want to keep him/her.

I am only able to buy really young Engineers that are in the pelagic stage still so my question is: will they pair off if provide them with a buddy of the opposite sex despite age and size difference?

Appreciate any help you can give me,

Thanks
 
Ok, thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to have to find out for myself. I'm hoping that the presence of the opposite gender is all that is needed for a sub-adult to pair off with a juvenile.
 
I purchased 2 & they spawned & I raised the fry. Couldn't give them away. But sorry I can not answer your question.
 
Finally got my hands on some Engineer juveniles, had to wait until my preferred supplier got some in.

I have added a group of 5. My first concern was how my existing Engineer goby was going to react to them but as it turned out I had no need to worry. He/she has continued to go about its business as usual.

Today for a brief moment one of the babies broke off from the group and joined my young adult. Hopefully its a sign of good things to come.

I just need to wait now to see how it is all going to turn out.
 
I wish you luck. Engineers are one of my favorites. I had one over 14" long and it looked like an eel without the hassle of eating my fish.
 
Thanks for wishing me luck Kizanne!

I lost one of the juvies in the first few days. It was missing for 2 days before I found its body - it had no tail and was found right outside my older engineers cave, so I suspected the worst.


Since then from watching the others navigate the flow in the tank, I've become convinced it got caught in a powerhead. The remaining 4 are doing well with 3 spending most of their time together and 1 living in the burrow with the older engineer. I wouldn't call it a pairing yet.
 
Well I can't figure out what's going on as I continue with this waiting game.

3 of the juveniles have been living on one side of the tank from the beginning, and they are virtually inseparable.

The 4th took up residence in the older engineers burrow on the opposite side of the tank for a while, then to a rock just outside of it. Every time it would swim too close to the trio of juveniles during feeding time, they would mouth it and push it away.

Then for the last week I've been unable to find the adult and juvie at all and was thinking something had happened to them until they both reappeared yesterday. The juvie is now living with the other juvies again and the adult has done some redecorating of its burrow. The older engineer still tolerates the young ones being present and will loll all over them at feeding time if they cross paths.

So who knows what this all means... just gotta wait until they are older and the real action happens when they reach breeding age.
 
And then there were 3. I now have the older engineer and just two of the younger ones left. I haven't seen any aggression however as they grew, there was one juvenile that was much smaller than the others. I went away for work for a week and it had vanished when I returned.

I know now that you can introduce baby Engineers to older ones. I think the end result of this is going to be that eventually there will be a pair left remaining.
 
i have always loved engineer gobies. my tank is not good for them since my rock is not secure and when i do setup my next tank it will have eggcrate on the bottom them the rock sitting in the grooves of the eggcrate and then a deep sandbed. that way i could sleep at night knowing that the engineer gobies wouldnt destroy everything. its odd there isnt much interest in this thread i think its pretty cool you are trying to breed them. i wish you luck
 
Thanks Hodge. Not really trying to breed them, just think fish have more interesting, happy lives if they can pair up or be in a group, so that's what I try to do.

I don't find that they destroy anything. Its very easy to make sure your rock is secure on the bottom of the tank and other than that the only thing you might not want to do is put corals on the sandbed, as they will spit substrate onto them.

Very small fish such as clown gobies are also not compatible as they will eat them.

In Australia there is very little mention of them in online forums. They sell out fast in the 2 local LFS I know that have them so they must be in people's tanks anyhow. They aren't exactly a showpiece fish because of their shy, burrowing nature, but I love having fish occupying all levels of the tank.
 
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