I recently purchased an ORA crested oyster goby. Long story short, I was looking for something that would stand up to my nippy little blue damsel. I considered a pygmy hawkfish, but the one at my LFS didn't want to eat. However, something else was very happy to eat, and he caught my attention with his eager food-chasing. A captive-bred crested oyster goby. I can't guarantee that all of his kind will be like this, but assuming I have a fairly standard one, I thought this might be useful.
He's currently about 3" long, and shouldn't get bigger.
He'll bite anything small, so not fussy in the slightest. Dry food, frozen food, bits of floating gunk, anything.
He's not aggressive towards my watchman goby or my damsel. Whenever the damsel lunged, he would whirl and bite the damsel, then he would dart off and hide until it stopped looking for him. A week later, the damsel leaves him alone aside from puffing now and then- apparently it got tired of being chomped and losing bits of fin. In other words, this fish retaliates when attacked but won't attack anything, not that I've seen. Very peaceful fish.
One employee saw it in a pistol shrimp burrow for a bit, but nobody was sure if it's a shrimpgoby. I've seen it in the back entrance of my tiger pistol's burrow a couple of times, but I don't think the goby's in there because it sees the pistol shrimp, I think it's in there because it found a tunnel. Probably not a shrimpgoby, from what I'm seeing, but the pistol tolerates it.
Mostly hops around on the bottom and the lower rocks, not a rock-hopper.
He's out in the open sometimes and in the rockwork others. I don't think he's shy, he just doesn't seem to care if he's in rockwork or out.
In short: peaceful but stands up to small bullies, not picky in the slightest, fairly bold, not a shrimpgoby to my knowledge despite the looks. Very good fish for anybody who wants a small goby-thing with neat patterns and some hints of color. I don't know how they are with others of their kind, but I'd hazard a guess that they're okay with other cresteds.
Anyone else kept one, or better, multiples? Care to contribute to my info on them? There doesn't seem to be too much out there, despite ORA breeding them.
He's currently about 3" long, and shouldn't get bigger.
He'll bite anything small, so not fussy in the slightest. Dry food, frozen food, bits of floating gunk, anything.
He's not aggressive towards my watchman goby or my damsel. Whenever the damsel lunged, he would whirl and bite the damsel, then he would dart off and hide until it stopped looking for him. A week later, the damsel leaves him alone aside from puffing now and then- apparently it got tired of being chomped and losing bits of fin. In other words, this fish retaliates when attacked but won't attack anything, not that I've seen. Very peaceful fish.
One employee saw it in a pistol shrimp burrow for a bit, but nobody was sure if it's a shrimpgoby. I've seen it in the back entrance of my tiger pistol's burrow a couple of times, but I don't think the goby's in there because it sees the pistol shrimp, I think it's in there because it found a tunnel. Probably not a shrimpgoby, from what I'm seeing, but the pistol tolerates it.
Mostly hops around on the bottom and the lower rocks, not a rock-hopper.
He's out in the open sometimes and in the rockwork others. I don't think he's shy, he just doesn't seem to care if he's in rockwork or out.
In short: peaceful but stands up to small bullies, not picky in the slightest, fairly bold, not a shrimpgoby to my knowledge despite the looks. Very good fish for anybody who wants a small goby-thing with neat patterns and some hints of color. I don't know how they are with others of their kind, but I'd hazard a guess that they're okay with other cresteds.
Anyone else kept one, or better, multiples? Care to contribute to my info on them? There doesn't seem to be too much out there, despite ORA breeding them.
