Goby Breeders - Elacatinus multifasciatus

[mwp]

So, while I don't intend to "flood" this board with all our happenings, this peculiar turn of events just occurred today and I'm "wondering"...

We have 2 Captive Bred Elacatinus multifasciatus (Greenbanded Gobies) in with the cardinalfish and firefish in tank #2. Upon purchase the fought and fought and fought - pretty much stayed away from each other as much as possible. Lots of face-to-face confrontation. I assumed we had two males and that was that.

Today things have changed (or perhaps this is simply the first day I noticed it). One of the two seems to be leading the other one in a chase around the tank...the "leader" shimmies and quivers..the other one more or less just follows. Far cry from fighting, it looks like our 2 PO'd gobies may have just decided to get along (and perhaps they're M/F afterall). I got some crummy vids (those tiny guys move so fast in and out of focus)...will try to post today.


Any thoughts?

MP

 

[NicoleC]

If you do a search, oceanarus has at least one pair that is breeding and has posted info on the spawns and pairs.

 

[olin]

I've bred them before- Seem line they have been sequential hermaphrodites. Always seem to get a pair when 2 juvies grow up together. Behaviour sounds like they are getting ready

 

[mwp]

Interesting Olin...I've done next to nothing in terms of researching the gobies, but the little bit I read didn't lead me to believe that we'd be dealing with hermaphrodites this time around. The way things have shaped up today though, and considering how many of our fish are turning out to be just that, I definitely think it's possible...

 

[mwp]

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/gobycourtship.html

It's short, just a couple mb, in flash...the only good vid I got of the behavior and I haven't witnessed it again. Olin, what do ya think?

MP

 

[olin]

Looks likely. The males seem to do this dance to entice the female back to their nest site. Like a little aquatic club without the techno music. Female selection seems to be based in other gobies on the size of the males territory, and the cleanliness of the spawning site. Again, kinda sounds familiar... I think he does want her to check out his pad. I know (at least in a statistically significant way) that the closely related sonora goby, Gobiosoma chiquita is a hermaphrodite based on some experiments I did with a few years back with pairing juvies from this species. I'm in the final bit of editing an article on rearing sonoran gobies and some of the associated experiments on pairing and microbial processes in rearing tanks with different foods for submission to reefkeeping. Hopefuly it will help people a bit. Good luck with the greens. They have rapidly become my favorite fish!

 

[mwp]

Olin, Nicole, I just wanted to thank you both again for your response to this post Now I just got to get those darn "NOID" but likely GBG babies I have to stop dying and start eating!

MP

 

[olin]

Good luck with that! The best results I've had with them seems to involve intense neglect. Dump them into a 10 gallon with some rots and a ton of nano, light it 24/7 and don't do anything for a couple of weeks till they are old enough for BBS. Maybe that's why I like raising the gobies. They thrive on apathy.

 

[ediaz]

Somehow Olin is very right...

 

[mwp]

Olin...HMM...maybe I should just toss them in the rotifer cultures??

Interesting observation!

Matt

 

[olin]

Sounds like a plan to me! With the heavy greenwater technique, I did some bacterial and chemical monitoring- the tank was always low in ammonia, and even went through a mini-cycle. With no filtration, ammonia and nitrite was at 0 by the time they went through metamorphasis without a single water change. Gotta love photosynthesis! Bacterial counts were also much lower than the tanks fed pre-enriched rotifers.

 

[mwp]

FWIW, if someone finds this thread looking through a search of the archives, you should also check out http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=758034 if you haven't already. Turns out that we likely (most definitely!) ended up with a pair - our experience definitely "fits" with Olin's observation that this species could indeed be hermaphroditic (sequentially).

FWIW,

MP