Twin Spot Goby...

[mmittlesteadt]

I recently acquired a Twin Spot Goby from my LFS. I had been observing him there daily for the past month. Active, apparently feeding (definitely sifting) and look very healthy. However I know that my LFS is in no position to really give it personal attention and care so leaving it there would make it less likely to survive than in my tank (however long that may be). I did not get him on impulse and I've researched him before getting him and I know I can do better for him than it living in the tank at the LFS.

I already realize the poor track record of keeping them in home aquaria. I also understand that their feeding habits and food source is extremely problematic. So this is not a thread posing a question as to whether or not I should keep him or return him. I'm more interested in any information anyone can share with me about helping him live as long and as healthy as possible. I have scoured the internet and read absolutely everything I can possibly find on them.

I have him in a 40 gallon breeder reef tank. Tank is only going on 2 months (fully cycled with no ammonia, nitrite and less than 5ppm nitrates) and it has a 65 gallon sump with a 27 gallon refugium with chaeto and copepods. It currently has no competition (and never will) for food. There are two Ocellarus Clownfish and one Firefish in the tank. There are ample caves in the rockwork even under the sand (rockwork is directly on the bottom). The firefish made a cave in the middle section and the Goby has made two caves on each end of the tank under rock ledges (that are under the sand).

He is only about 1 1/2" long and is very active morning and evening (that I can tell...I'm not home during the day). I have been target feeding him Reef Chili every morning and night. I make a super concentrated batch of it and I'm injecting it about 1/2" into the sandbed and on it, all around the two rockwork caves he inhabits. Some gets out into open water and my corals and other fish love it.

By sticking the bottle tip into the sand bed and making a trail in it while I dose the Reef Chili, I can see where I put it. I've seen him come out and follow this trail actively sifting. From what I can see the sand is coming out as he sifts, but not any of the plankton in the Reef Chili. I can only assume he is gobbling it up as he is sifts along this trail. I also have New Life spectrum sinking pellets that settle on the sandbed in little eddy's around his caves where there is very little water flow. I can't verify that he is eating them though.

It is my understanding that these Twin Spot Gobies do not eat the larger copepods found in rockwork, but rather the smaller zooplankton in the sand.

I'm doing the best I can for it, and honestly he isn't going to get more personal attention anywhere else and the feeding schedule is not a bother to me. I'm also making sure my skimmer is handling the feeding. Is there any more I can do for him? Any suggestions on anything else I can do for him are appreciated.

Here's a pic of him in my tank near one of his caves. He's not fat, but he's not wasting away either. Pic is a bit distorted due to taking the pic at a severe angle from the side of the tank.

 

[ThRoewer]

From what I know these guys are best kept in pairs and will then successfully reproduce - one little one at a time.
I always wanted to give them a try but didn't know that feeding them may be a problem.

 

[mmittlesteadt]

This guy was the only one in the tank, or store. Waiting on a mate might have set him back even further, but yes I have read that too about keeping them in pairs. Maybe they need the moral support?

 

[mmittlesteadt]

The little guy is still doing well.

 

[mmittlesteadt]

I found a little more information from some online scientific journals...

"They take large mouthfuls of sand sifting it through their gill openings. Stomach analysis of three specimens, indicates that the species feeds primarily on interstitial copepods, but also takes in large numbers of nematodes, foraminifera, ostrasods and small amounts of sand."

I'm curious if some sand ending up in their stomachs aids in digestion? Curious. Some birds require small gravel for digestion, while others do not.

Interstitial Copepods - Animals living in the spaces between individual sand grains in the soil or aquatic sediments.

Nematodes - Essentially Roundworms. They represent 90% of all life forms on the ocean floor.

Foraminifera - Shelled Amoeba.

Ostrasods - Seed Shrimp.

All of these life forms are found to be either planktonic (drifting in sea waters) or benthic (living on the ocean floor).

So you can see that the Twin Spot Goby feeds primarily on the tiniest of benthic creatures. This is not something we're going to replicate in our aquariums. The copepods that Mandarins feed on must be planktonic if they are to live in refugiums and make their way to the display tank via the water flow.

Twin spots are difficult indeed.

 

[suta4242]

I have only known one local guy that kept them successfully for three years. At any rate his method seems to make sense but he mentioned the tank had a lot of nuisance growth from his feeding methods.

Basically in quarantine he gave the pair a plastic sand filled container. He squirted lots of live brine around their heads. When they got the idea he substituted frozen brine and so on, eventually improving the nutritional value of the mix.

Once they got to the main tank (IIRC) he would squirt the food in areas near their home. Low flow would ensure it stayed on the bottom where the fish could sift it through along with the sand.

Guess I lost interest once I realised his method worked in a low flow environment without competitors.

Although this is only speculation on my part, I don't believe they need to be a pair to succeed in keeping them. Pairs would be more successful in the wild perhaps in avoiding predation. I think the biggest problem in captivity is they strip the food out of all but the biggest sand beds very quickly, and slowly starve.

Good luck with him. :wave:

 

[mmittlesteadt]

I will try to keep all of my progress on keeping him in this thread

I have some sinking pellets in there this morning, and as usual a lot of them end up swirling about the sand in little eddy's by his rock caves that my water flow creates. I've just witnessed him eating them!

So between the pellets and the Reef Chili (which gets target fed directly into the sand bed), with any luck at all, perhaps I can help him live as long as possible. It is not ideal, but I still hold out hope. I will keep reporting as to it's progress.

If anyone wants to offer advice, other than telling me I did the wrong thing and should return it (which won't happen), I would really appreciate it. Thank you. Please direct all comments in that other thread so I can keep it consolidated there.