Favorite Goby Pair

U

UWUALineman

Member
What is your favorite Goby pair? I am looking to add some fish to the bottom area of the tank. I like the Wheelers Goby but they are not easy to come by. What is your favorite pair for color, personality, habits, hardiness etc.
I am caught between gobies or jawfish.
 
My favorites tend to be the little bitty nano-type gobies. I had a pair of tiger gobies (Elacatinus macrodon) who were great. Not at all colorful, but completely reef-safe, peaceful, and fun to watch. They live on the bottom and make their home in holes and crannies in the LR. They eat almost anything and hunt pods as well.

I also really like the cleaner gobies, but I've found them to be very susceptible to ich. Same goes for clown gobies, which can be hard to feed--mine have either settled in and done well, or died pretty quickly. Some people have trouble with them nipping at SPS polyps (mostly acros), but I haven't run into this so far.

The only drawback to these fish, aside from those already mentioned, is that they all seem to have relatively short lifespans. I've never had any of them for longer than a year.
 
i've had pearly jaws, blue spotted jaws. I've had randallis goby, yasha, yellow watchmen and 3 different kinds of clown gobies. I know have a dracula and he is awesome. By far the best goby i've ever had. I would go goby jaws seem to be fincky and fragile, most of the shrimp gobies are hardy and more active. to be honest i have only had long term success with yasha and yellow watchmen out of all the gobies though. Just my experience, i'd go with a goby
 
Small ones? The yasha with the matching candy cane pistol.

Larger? I like the tiger sleeper gobies (Valenciennea wardii).
 
My favorite so far is a pair of Diamond gobies (Valenciennea puellaris). They are not the flashiest of fish, but I love the sky blue and magenta spots on the their head. They have been eating Spectrum pellets like pigs, so feeding for me is really easy. There not that messy as sand sifters either.
 
I have a pair of Golden-headed Sleeper Gobies that are really cool if you don't mind a little sand shifting. They stay in a burrow like a jawfish, but are out much more swimming in formation and taking a bite of sand every little while. When one scoops sand, the other will follow within a few seconds. I bought them together out of a shipment of several at the LFS and was just lucky it was a mated pair. Non-mated pairs will fight.
 
SMOOTHIE said:
Green banded are nice. Also check into neon gobies even though they do not stay towards the bottom
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Green banded gobies are my favorite fish of all time. They will pair up if you have several of them and then they'll breed, which is really neat. They are also much longer lived than a lot of gobies that I've had. We had one for at least 4 years. I currently have a 2 year old one. People always overlook these little gems because in the stores they're always ultra-tiny but once you get them home and they get fattened up they are a much more substantial fish and are super cute.

I love the high fin red banded goby (aka yellow rose goby) with a randall's pistol shrimp but if you have a decent sized fishtank you might not see them much. Wheeler's and Randall's gobies are also pretty neat...pairing with tiger pistol shrimp. Randall's goby have a top fin that looks like a bent over ribbon IMO. They both get decent sized but lately several people have cussed at me because their tiger pistol dug around enough to destabilize their rockwork.

IME (which is contrary to someone else's above) Yasa Hashes tend to be quite delicate, with high fins following closely behind. Yellow watchmen are nearly bulletproof but they're about as common as can be and as such I really don't have much desire to have one. I'm thinking I'd like to go with either a wheelers or a randalls goby with a tiger pistol. I just set up a 120g tank a couple of months ago to which I've been debating about which type of pair to add.

Have you seen the red headed gobies? They're pretty cool too.

As far as jawfish goes...it's hit or miss with these guys. I'd definitely think about getting one locally that's been in their systems for a little while because the trick to them seems to be getting a healthy one from the start. Also...keep that tank 100% covered (hopefully you already knew that).

Blackcap Jawfish seem to be pretty dang hearty, IME. Bluespots are naturally pretty skittish but you can usually calm them down by adding extra rock rubble for them to play with. All the yellowheads I've seen lately are pretty dang sickly...which sucks because they're awesome too. Maybe it's different in your area of the country, but we keep getting these ones that seriously don't do well.
 
jarrod13 said:
Happy clam, how did you get them eating pellets, anything special?
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The LFS I bought them from (Midwest Corals) had them already eating pellets. I use to put the pellets in a jar with some sand because they would blow away too quickly, but now the gobies just grab them when they float by.
 
I chose a Diamond Goby pair. This beautiful pair have been in my QT for two weeks. In a week or two they will be moved to my DT. They are so much fun to watch. I added 2 cups of sand from my DT to help seed the QT. They have filled one of the two PVC T's in the QT with the sand and built a protective dwelling where they spend most of their time while the light is off. During the day they cautiously move about the water column and are very alert to anyone in the room. They do well with mysis, I haven't tried pellets yet but plan to start this week.
 

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