Engineer Gobies free to good home

Sparkss

Active member
Also known as Convict Blennies (although they are neither blennie nor Goby)
They have become just a bit too territorial for some fish that we plan to add to our main tank, both of which will need to be sharing the sand bed, and I just don't trust these guys to "sahre" well. So with a heavy heart, they must go (they are really kewl and we will definitely miss them and their antics). They are very graceful when they swim and their markings are really pretty and neat to watch as they move.

Here is an article that says everything there needs to be said about them (it is pretty dead on accurate, from our experiences). If you are not completely familiar with these fish then please read the article before asking to "adopt" one (or more) of them from us.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/pholodichthyidae.htm

Here is the 3 that we have caught so far.. 3 more to go. and no, you don't need to take all 6 to be able to add one to your tank. They were originally given to us and we decided it would be "neat" to see them all schooling. Well, they did that for the first coupld of months then ones they got their adult colors they basically either paired off under the rockwork, or "went solo"

Engineer_001.jpg


Thanks :)
 
Here are some pictures that I forgot we took last week of them in our tank. It gives a much better representation of the fish :

Tank_002.jpg


Tank_003.jpg


Tank_004.jpg


and one final one peaking out checking to see if it is dinner time yet :)

Tank_007.jpg
 
We have 4 of them caugth now and are going to leave the last one in the tank until the tank upgrade occurs iun a couple of months (and even then will likely move her over to the new tank with the rest of the fish), since she appears to be the runt of the litter, and already has iher adult colors, so she should be done growing :)
 
Hi Tom,

How big are they? Are they ok with the shrimp? The artical stated that they will eat their mouth size fish. I've just placed 2 white bar maroon about a week ago. One is about 1" and the other about 1.5".

Thanks.
 
The bucket in the first picture is an Oceanic 200 gal salt bucket (so 7 gallon bucket, I think). The other pictures show average sized purple tang and some other corals to compare against. We have a 1" neon goby that has been with us for over a year and they never gave him a second look, but we added a small bicolor blenny that lasted maybe an hour (we strongly suspected these guys as the culrptis back then). The bicolor was bicolor was about 1" but was very thin/slender, while the neon goby has a much thicker body. Also, the bicolor swam right into their home, sort of like take out food home delivery :(. For these guys it is more about width than length of a fish. They usually cost less than $10 each new, so if you really want some (and they are very cool fish), it might be better to wait until your current fish grow up a little and then buy one or two (I do recommend a pair as they are fun to watch together) from an LFS. But most likley the smaller white bar would be ok, but I wouldn't want to take any chances either. Up to you. :)
 
The fillipino exporters list their (engineer goby) common name as a neon goby, so your kinda correct in a way :lol:
 
neon gobies are totally different critters.. little cute blue or yellow guys.. that stay small and cute.. unlike these which get big :). Still beautiful and graceful to watch, but far from cute and absolutely no reason to call them neon (no bright colors what so ever) :).

We do have a yellow neon goby in our tank, which is the correct neon goby : gobiosama oceanops. As you can see from the link provided above for the engineer gobies, they are not really true gobies.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7548069#post7548069 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparkss
neon gobies are totally different critters.. little cute blue or yellow guys.. that stay small and cute.. unlike these which get big :). Still beautiful and graceful to watch, but far from cute and absolutely no reason to call them neon (no bright colors what so ever) :).

We do have a yellow neon goby in our tank, which is the correct neon goby : gobiosama oceanops. As you can see from the link provided above for the engineer gobies, they are not really true gobies.

Tiss the problem of a common name. What may be a neon goby for them in PI, may not be the one most poeple know as the one from the ATL ;) Can you tell them incorrect, nope, cuz it's the truth as they've known it for more then two decades and it's a common name that means little to nothing when it comes down to it.
 
which is why I try to use the Latin name when calling for/ordering fish :). The LFS that don't know, or can't be bothered with, the Latin are ones I usually can't be bothered to frequent :)
 
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