Starving Diamond Goby

[bms270]

Hi,

I bought a diamond goby about 2 months ago. At the beginning he was sifting the sand and keeping it clean but recently he refuses to clean the bottom and comes up for fish food only. He is getting thinner every day and his body is shrinking from the sides. He sometimes even nips at the algae on the back wall of the aquarium but I am afraid he may starve. Any suggestion on how to feed him? He eats fish food but still so thin. Anybody with the same experience?

Thanks,
Bijan

 

[snorvich]

Sounds as if he has depleted your sand bed of his natural food; sand sifters often have this problem. Feed your tank more frequently and you may be able to work around this.

 

[romsoccer12]

sounds like hes a goner if left in your tank. +1 on sand depletion. you need to feed him a LOT of varieties, try getting rods food and putting some chunks of it in the sand. if not get him to a bigger tank

 

[candeewolf]

+1 to the idea of feeding a bit more....especially food that will find its way to the bottom. Also, the problem could be if you have another fish/invertebrate that is competing for food with the goby.

 

[Peter Eichler]

This is very common and there's not much you can do other than not buy one in the future and try to feed more to see if he'll fatten up. Intestinal worms may be part of the problem but even when eating and sifting Valenciennea often slowly starve to death. Most likely what it comes down to is that even large aquariums can't support enough sandbed life to keep them fat and healthy longterm, especially if people are feeding sparingly and only once or twice a day.

 

[SMOOTHIE]

Sinking pellets.

 

[silverstool]

i had the exact same problem with mine. tried to feed him everything and he finally died. that was in my 120

 

[AC2020x]

I'm considering getting one cause it would be really nice to have my sand bed stirred around, Often I do not feed sparingly and there is some food or stuff left over in the sand. But i'm still worried that I might starve him. I have a 125g with about 100lbs of sand. and nothing else that would compete for food in the sand. - any thoughts?

 

[romsoccer12]

125g seems fine, just try to feed more often and get lots of varieties of food

 

[Blownsvt]

mine is new to my tank but he sitsts the sand and grabs any bits of mysis shrimp that make it down to him. he also does a good job of getting any pelets that reach the sand. You might try putting some pelets in the sand where he holes up and see if he grabs them.

 

[boostat4500]

I had one for about a month, until he jumped out of the tank. He would gobble up mysis shrimp like there was no tomorrow. Give those a try to fatten him back up.