Flaming Prawn goby in reef tank

[teemee]

An LFS got these in a few days ago - they haven't been seen locally in years, and I was wondering if anyone has these in their tank, with other goby species. I have a pair of orange spotted gobies, IF i can catch them, they'll be removed from my 55g with lots of hiding places. Unless there is general consensus here that I might not have to.
Please let me know what you think. I know several people are going to say putting a flaming prawn goby in a 55 is no better than putting it in a swimming pool but I don't have a pico set up anymore.
Please let me know your thoughts - if I have to rip my tank apart to get the orange spotted gobies out, so be it.
BTW this tank is inhabited by very peaceful occupants: 1 osff, 2 ruby red dragonettes, 2 target mandarins and a pygmy pink streaked wrasse, on top of the pair of orange spotted gobies.

 

[MikeandNicole]

Hi Teemee,

Nothing wrong with little fish in a bigger tank
Our 205 houses high fin gobies, yasha gobies, and magnificient gobies to name a few

Flaming prawns are really lovely little fish.
We have had two, each for about a year and a half, in our 12g nano.
There were other gobies in our 12g, a magnificent goby, sometimes a cleaner goby or a red headed goby or an evoita goby.
We saw them very rarely.
They were pretty cryptic fish.
Honestly I have seen them available locally since we purchased our two, and have not done so again. My impression is that they have relatively short life spans (although that is just an impression and has nothing other than my personal experience behind it). Given how cryptic our two were, I would prefer to have a yasha hasa goby, a high fin goby, or a dracula, but that is just my personal opinion.

One thing I would be cautious of- our Anthias have considered eating some of the smaller fish I added to our 205g (our hula fish to be specific), and our Jawfish ate a goby once when I was not careful, so watch out when adding the flaming prawns if you do choose to buy them.

 

[clay12340]

I had one of these in my 12 gallon, and that tank had far too many hiding places for the fish. In my experience unless you specifically build a tank with them in mind, then they're a complete waste of money. In that 12 gallon with about 10lbs of rock I'd be lucky to glimpse the fish weekly once he was settled in, and no one else would have even known he was there. Beyond the first week or so he wouldn't even come out during feeding times. I'd just see him occasionally snagging a piece that went into or behind a rock.

Also like MikeandNicole said be careful with whatever else is in the tank. Mine at least was really tiny when he arrived, and almost any fish bigger than an inch or two would easily be able to eat him. The rule with fish is always if it'll fit it's food even with peaceful fish, so be sure you've only got it with other tiny fish.

Should also note that I had him with a hi fin shrimp goby and he actually pushed that goby around when first added to the tank despite being about 1/3 his size. They seemed to come to some sort of agreement after the first day or two though, and I never witnessed anymore problems between them.