Clown goby and acropora acclimating to its presence

[spicytuna]

Hello all,

I just recently got a clown goby about a week ago. I have a few sps and acropora colonies but he seems to host in only 3. The pearlberry, red table and my purple digi.

One concern of mine is, the pearlberry and red table have always had very long polyp extension, day and night. Since the goby has started hosting, these corals have not extended polyps in about a week now. Both corals seem to slightly have there polyps peaking out, but it definatley has caught me off gaurd and a tad concerned. The digi however is unaffected, and surprisingly the flow spends most his time in the digi anyways, probably because its the biggest.

Does anyone with experience with clown gobies, have similar opinions or experiences with a acros acclimating to the presence of this fish. All other parameters are find alk,cal,mag,salinity all in stable consistant ranges, phos and nitrate undetectable and all other corals are happy.

Here's a pic of the little guy. He does a great job of picking the stuck food from my colonies.

 

[a.browning]

Definitely a cool fish, but from my experience they will nip/eat sps polyps. That could explain the lack of PE on a few of your acros. Perhaps watch him closely and see if this is the case. Hopefully it is a different issue, as catching that guy would not be fun!

 

[spicytuna]

Definitely a cool fish, but from my experience they will nip/eat sps polyps. That could explain the lack of PE on a few of your acros. Perhaps watch him closely and see if this is the case. Hopefully it is a different issue, as catching that guy would not be fun!

Man! I was really under the impression this fish had a symbiosis with acropora. A quick google search definatley shows other wise. I havnt seen him nip the corals, but just eat food that gets stuck on the colonies.

Either way, next month I'm tearing this tank down, and if that's the case, he's definatley gone!

 

[mc-cro]

One of the worst mistakes I ever put in my tank. At the time I only had a few sps, so he irritated the same ones all the time.

Lets see you try and get him out without a 1" hose and vacuum cleaner.

edit- I see your tearing the tank down. much easier.

 

[spicytuna]

UPDATE!!!!

I CAUGHT THE LITTLE BUGGER!!!!!

Was up really early this morning, and was checking on the tank. It dawned on me that marine fish don't see red light. BINGO! My 4 year old has one of those LED headband lights, and it just happens to have a red night switch. So since its pitch black in the living room, I cut off the moonlights and inspected the tank with the red headlamp only. Sure enough, not a single creature in my tank noticed the red light. I've been looking at my tank for years in the dark with a flash light and I was quite surprised, nothing flinched at all, not even Copepods or bristle worms, and my fish were completely oblivious to my prescence.

Sure enough, there was the little clown goby resting on top my big tyree blue chalice in the most open spot I could possibly catch him. I gently slid the net in behind the chalice and then took my hand and have him a little nudge, and off into the net he went!!!

Man I'm so happy right now! I can't wait to see my sps come back to life. Luckily Ive only had him a week and he hasn't killed any sps, but colonies that NEVER close there polyps have been completely closed for a good week now. I know there still alive because I can see just the tips of the polyps barely sticking out, and all the acros have retained there color. No STN or RTN.

Merry christmas everyone!!

 

[spicytuna]

Xxx

 

[M007]

Consider it a gift from the Reefer God. Clown gobies, while cute and interesting, lay their eggs in the branches of acropora. In the wild in a massive colony this isn't a huge issue. In a considerably small, closed system, disaster! :uhoh3:

 

[REEF SMAC]

I've never really had an issue with mine. In fact I have three of them now. The brown one a purchased turned into a larger (1.5") coral nipping machine. I think it is actually a Citron Goby. I have the yellow one and the green one. I've had the green one for over 6 years now. I didn't know they could live that long.
They've never really been a problem. Yah sure they nip a polyps but they really don't seem to do any damage. Corals seem to grow just fine.

For the amount of people placing Angels in their SPS tanks these days, I can't believe these little guys are ever an issue.