stonogobiops nematodes, aka high fin red striped goby

[Sk8r]

...are doing very well. They're amazingly visible from clear across the room. They've discovered cyclopeeze, and came out to eat on day one, spent day two playing jack-in-the-box out of hiding, and are starting to swim a little apart from their shelter.

Beautiful fish, and in a peaceful tank they may show out to good advantage. Glad I got them. TINY little things---max size about two inches. But very bright.

 

[Fish'InMN]

Do they get along well with both the swimmers, like chromis, and the perchers, like YWGs? I have been concidering one (or two?) of these for a 15H with two ocellaris clowns; glad to hear someone has some experience with them!

Cheers,
Marty

 

[Sk8r]

They're doing very well with a chromis and the watchman; you can see my fish list appended. Absolutely nothing has challenged them and they have threatened nothing. I don't have any clowns, but these are not fish that will violate another's territory. Mine have taken up residence in my copepod rubble pile, under a ball of green star polyps. Which is an excellent situation for them: the rubble is too heavy for any pursuer to move, and full of pods.
They are carnivores, despite their tiny size. They are really chowing down on the cyclopeeze.

A p'o'ed clown is capable of mayhem---I've seen them grab a smaller fish and stuff it into their anemone---but if yours are tranquil and easy in their territory, they should do fine.

 

[Fish'InMN]

I would never try to keep an anemone in a 15g tank, and luckily my lighting agrees with this philosophy. The one clown I have so far has taken up home in a large Hammer at the top of my tank, I will be waiting a month or so until I get another clown.

Were you able to get a pair and/or can you tell the fish apart as far as gender goes?

Hopefully you don't mind the questions.


Thanks,
Marty

 

[Sk8r]

Not at all: I love these bright little fish. I had one with a slight problem on entry: he/she had swallowed some 'air', and couldn't swim down. After burping up several bubbles this fish, the smaller, swam down to the rubble pile and took up residence. The larger went in, went to the same spot, and joined the other. I remained concerned whether the smaller had taken damage, but both started eating quite readily. The larger one is increasingly out and visible, now perching on the rubble, while the smaller stays below, watching out the front of the glass. The second one doesn't come out to perch, but has a healthy appetite and carries its fin erect like the other.

So in short, it may be sexual dimorphism in size and in behavior, but I don't know this fish well enough to tell. They were bagged and shipped separately, but they glommed onto each other, and don't get too far apart. When feeding, one bobs up high in the water column and then goes down as the other bobs up---a cute performance.
So I don't know what I've got, but they seem content. They nest for the night with one's head atop the other, a little 'fish stack' in the rubble.

 

[iku]

i have a pair of yashia gobies.. (along with a pistol shrimp). are they the same thing with highfin red-striped gobies??

 

[Sk8r]

No, the yasha is different in eye shape and in coloring, I believe, orange/red dots and dashes on white, I think, though the yasha has a very extraordinary fin---a beautiful fish. There is yet one more red stripe goby which doesn't have the high fin---and I'm not sure whether the stripes slant forward or back; and then there is the high-fin red-striped goby, which has a black erect fin, red stripes that circle the body and slant from tail to belly, and a yellow head---amazing how far across the room that yellow shows up. Not to forget the Tangaroa goby, which is another species with a beautiful fin and the spotting on a pale body. I am not sure how they would all get along together, but they would certainly make a beautiful collection of fish.