clown goby and food

[geekengineer]

I have a 10 gal tank and working on getting bigger one setup. My LFS guy got me to get this clown goby thinking this would work better for my small tank setup, but he is like the pickiest fish for food I ever seen in my life. It makes it difficult cause feeding frozen food is sort of a pain when I am in a hurry.

So far I had trouble even feeding him frozen foods, but finally got him to eat brine shrimp. I tried mysis shrimp but he doesn't seem to like that, but LFS guy said I should feed variety of foods, but no go. I found some pure freeze dried stuff that I can at least mix with saltwater and it will not float but I don't' think he is eating much of it if any.

Don't know if anyone would have any suggestions? I seen some stuff about raising brine shrimp wonder if there might be something there I could setup once I get a sump and bigger tank going.

 

[gji]

Few drops over garlic on mysis will entice him

 

[geekengineer]

Yeah I forgot to mention I tried that seachem entice which I thought was simmer thing essentially? Didn't seem to work very well. I guess I keep trying it or use something more pure.

 

[Reef Frog]

They have a tiny mouth so food must be small. I'd mince the mysis. Mine eats finely minced Reef Frenzy, fish eggs & small krill. They have limited ability to pursue food moving quickly in the current. Try turning pumps down or off & deliver the food from a turkey baster.

 

[ginpang]

Mine love cyclops ,Rotifers , formula one, brine shrimps and omega one's marine carnivore formula.

 

[microlady]

My clown gobies are pigs and will eat anything. I have a green and a tiny yellow one. Some are very shy when first introduced. Try some live brine, or selcon soaked mysis.

 

[microlady]

They have a tiny mouth so food must be small. I'd mince the mysis. Mine eats finely minced Reef Frenzy, fish eggs & small krill. They have limited ability to pursue food moving quickly in the current. Try turning pumps down or off & deliver the food from a turkey baster.

Yes! I feed with a turkey baster too while turning off circulation pumps.

 

[geekengineer]

yeah I try to chop up the mysis of course he tries to go for the biggest pieces anyways just spits them out most the time. lol Maybe he is eating some of it and just hard to tell.

Rotofers does remind me... The LFS guy did say something about rotofers and he knew someone who had live ones in town, but wasn't sure how much of a pain that be. Wonder if dead ones like the powered ones would work? I think I saw those for sale someplace if I recall.

I was also wondering about just baby brine shrimp too sounds like maybe I could work out something automatic possibly? Haven't had a chance to look around here much yet but recall seeing some stuff about doing some sort of automatic feeding of them and growing them near or in the sump?

I look into some of the other options mentioned thanks a bunch.

 

[homer1475]

My citron clown goby is a hog. At first when in QT he wouldn't eat anything but mysis, I eventually got him eating a variety of food by soaking in garlic. Now he eats everything I put in the tank, from flakes, and pellets, to reef frenzy and other frozen foods. He does go absolutely nuts when I feed my corals with reef frenzy soaked in selcon.

 

[geekengineer]

well may be a all mute point now I think he got Ich (white spots everywhere) and I don't have a place to QT him at the moment and I have inverts.. Let alone I don't have much time to deal with it. He probably hasn't had enough nutrition and too much stress. He only been maybe eating the frozen brine shrimp as far as I can tell and that seemed to take a while just to get him to eat that. Stopping the tank pumps might have helped but all may be too late at this point.

 

[geekengineer]

hmm well I duno if I just saw something this morning because of the light but I not seeing the spots like I did this morning. I not sure what I should do now. I got some Ich attack ( supposedly reef safe) at the store I guess then came home and didn't see what I thought I saw. Maybe I am losing my mind.. :rolleye1:

Anyways the LFS guy gave me some other frozen food to try and I don't think he ate it or at least not much of it so I gave him some more brine shrimp and seemed to go for some of it. I got some vitamin stuff I can soak in the brine shrimp on order should be here tomorrow. I forgot to check to see if the LFS had something like that but I didn't think I saw a vitamin supplement or at least what I thought would work. I guess the marine fish I had before were easy and just ate flake food lol. so this is sort of crazy.

This is the best photo I could get he's not the best at staying still and color isn't the best to discern either.

 

[geekengineer]

RIP clown goby.. I think he dieing Maybe I wasn't seeing things I duno seems like he had ich the other day then I couldn't see anything. Now looked like he had spots on him again and wasn't acting right just lying under rock not doing anything no interest in food at all. So my LFS guy said to freshwater dip him but I figure it was too much for him but didn't know what else I could do at this point with no QT setup at the moment etc.

After the treatment he just laying upside down being sucked into the intake of the protein skimmer a while after I put him back in. He is still breathing maybe not that fast but looking like a goner to me. I just never could get him to eat right either and after trying lots of different things it gets a bit frustrating to want to keep ordering different stuff.

 

[ginpang]

Sorry for your loss ... Maybe next ask the lfs clerk to feed it in front of you before you buy it...

 

[geekengineer]

yeah I guess so I never had a fish be this picky of an eater before. I suppose I should have known cause I think it was a little underweight when I got it. I just thought maybe the other fish were stealing from its food or something. I guess it wasn't that expensive of a fish so not a huge money loss just sucks to lose another one. I going to be 0 and 3 so far here.

He seems to be breathing still but very listless. He just fell of the intake and head dove into the rock.

So do you think I should wait a while until getting a new fish? how long you think the life cyle of ich is? assuming that was what it was even? Course if the LFS got it doesn't really matter I guess in my case. He may just not not been thriving enough.

 

[geekengineer]

RIP clown goby.. sorry you didn't get the right food. :sad2:

 

[leemosh]

I'm not sure if those white spots were ich, they look more blotchy than bumpy to me.

When you try again, maybe add some Selcon to the food to bump up the nutritional value. I've had a few picky eaters that won't touch mysis but gobble down the frozen brine shrimp with Selcon. You can introduce more variety after you get them healthy from eating.

 

[geekengineer]

Yeah the day he was sick I thought I saw something again but I don't know it was hard to tell on this sort of fish. So if I run into that again I have a better idea of what to try. I got some vitamin stuff but it wasn't selcon I didn't get the memo soon enough before I ordered it. It was that vitachem stuff. I don't know if that be just as good, but then I got this mixed frozen food that had brine shrimp in it from the LFS recommended that had vitamins in it but that might not been good idea either. I kept trying to change things too much probably not good idea in hind sight.

 

[Betta132]

Brine shrimp has very little nutrition in it. Baby brine have lots of nutrients for about a day because they still have the yolk sac, but past that they're basically cotton candy.

Clown gobies sometimes come into the trade in bad shape. I think they may be cyanide-caught, since they're so tiny and agile. The key is to find one that's eating at the LFS and seems at least reasonably plump.

 

[geekengineer]

lol cyanide caught? would that just kill them totally. I was going to maybe try growing baby brine shrimp but I just didn't' have wherewithal to figure that all out get it setup.

Thanks

 

[geekengineer]

Huh wow that sucks.. I figure that kill them maybe its a very small amount.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cyanide-fishing/

I didn't know they do that. I asked the LFS guy the other day about that to that maybe it was wild caught and he said he didn't think they get wild caught fish but who knows for sure.