Two spot gobies.

hamiltonguy

New member
I was thinking of getting one or two for my 75g aquarium but I read somewhere that they do better as a pair. Is there any truth to that?

Also, would this fish compete for pods with a mandarin?
 
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They do better as a pair, they do compete with a mandarin, and are considered a moderately difficult fish to maintain. Usually the Two Spot Goby feeds off the bottom sifting through the sand for food. It should be fed a variety of either live or vitamin-enriched frozen brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, live black worms, and prepared foods for carnivores. Remember that these are somewhat shy and will not hunt well with other fish competing for their food.
 
I had one for a bout a year in my old tank but it died due to my own neglect. Luckily I had a lot of algae for it to eat.

I guess I'll rethink the mandarin idea, what other might compete with the two spot for food? (e.g hector's goby)
 
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I had about a 3" sand bed on my old tank and it was always sifting sand.

It did eat some algae here and there but I also fed it mysis, flakes, pellets.
 
I've had one for about 6 months now, along with a Rainford's goby (similar to a Hector's) and a mandarin. I had them all together in a 29g for about 5 months, but just shifted the two spot and mandarin to a 120g, which is 3 months old. It is possible to keep them all together, but you have to have some very specific micro-environments in order for it to work. The mandarin and the Rainford's will move up from the sand bed to feed on the rocks, but the two spot will not. So, you need a lot of open sand bed for the two spot, and a lot of vertical rock formations for the other two. I have an ORA mandarin, so he's a good eater of prepared food. The way I do it is make a slurry of very small food items--cyclops, rotifers, oyster eggs and fish eggs--and squirt it over the sand bed every morning. Turn off the pumps and let the two spot get a big belly full. Mine gets very excited and starts eating immediately. After that, when the pumps are back on, food gets blown up into the rocks, where the other two fish can pick at it. The Rainford's will sift the sand a bit, but can obtain food elsewhere.

Keep in mind that 6 months isn't long enough to prove anything, but so far, so good. Since my 120 is so new, I've kept up this routine, and I haven't noticed the mandarin or two spot losing weight.
 
I've had one for about 6 months now, along with a Rainford's goby (similar to a Hector's) and a mandarin. I had them all together in a 29g for about 5 months, but just shifted the two spot and mandarin to a 120g, which is 3 months old. It is possible to keep them all together, but you have to have some very specific micro-environments in order for it to work. The mandarin and the Rainford's will move up from the sand bed to feed on the rocks, but the two spot will not. So, you need a lot of open sand bed for the two spot, and a lot of vertical rock formations for the other two. I have an ORA mandarin, so he's a good eater of prepared food. The way I do it is make a slurry of very small food items--cyclops, rotifers, oyster eggs and fish eggs--and squirt it over the sand bed every morning. Turn off the pumps and let the two spot get a big belly full. Mine gets very excited and starts eating immediately. After that, when the pumps are back on, food gets blown up into the rocks, where the other two fish can pick at it. The Rainford's will sift the sand a bit, but can obtain food elsewhere.

Keep in mind that 6 months isn't long enough to prove anything, but so far, so good. Since my 120 is so new, I've kept up this routine, and I haven't noticed the mandarin or two spot losing weight.

I never thought of shutting off all the pumps and feeding the two spot, sounds like a good idea. If you've had 6 months success with one, maybe it would do better as a pair?

Worse comes to worse I just might not get the two spot and stick with the mandarin alone.

Of course the mandarin is way down the road until I have enough pods for it to eat.
 
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