Disappearance Of My Goby: Episode 2

[injektion]

lovely as they are, they keep disappearing on me!!!

ok so i bought a blue cheek goby (golden head goby, whatever you want to call it) maybe about a month ago and a couple days in and he disappears. i look everywhere, from under the sand and rocks to outside the tank to the opposite side of the room, and NOTHING. it's like he vanished into thin air. i dismissed the fact that it went missing and bought another goby, this time an orange spotted one because they stay on the sand more and sift more actively. and for a week or so it was fine and even eating my frozen food. and yesterday, what do you know, it disappears again. i checked everywhere again, under sand, rocks, filter, outside the tank, floor, windows, cooking pans and pots , etc. and nothing.

at first i thought maybe my snowflake moray ate the blue cheek goby because it was quite small, but after i bought the orange spotted goby (a pretty big one too), i ruled this theory out because my moray is pretty small too (maybe about a little thicker than a regular pencil) and couldn't stuff the goby in its mouth.

so what happened to them? any theories? similar stories?

my tank is a 30 us gal with lr, cleaner wrasse, bicolour blenny, and a snowflake moray eel. oh and some softies (though i doubt xenias, mushrooms, zoas, and a kenya tree was the cause of goby disappearances

 

[jtnova13]

My blue cheek also went missing in a 90 gallon. It was eating well, maybe died from starvation from having stomach parasites?

There is nothing capable of eating it in my tank, but it went missing and I haven't found any remnants of it. My only theory could be that it jumped out of the tank in the back and I just didn't see it lying on the ground?

 

[-Nemo-]

I've been through my fair share of sleeper gobies... they are really tough (especially blue cheek) and as much as i love them, I feel as if they are one of those fish which just really shouldn't be sold. They have an abundance of problems. I've had three that jumped (one lived the experience), that same one who jumped and lived also got into my overflow. So check everywhere for them! I've also had one which ate like a pig yet never seemed to gain weight, he wasn't horrible underweight, but not as fat as I would like. He ended up dying more likely from an intestinal problem which is very common for them. At my LFS, 60% of the time they don't eat at all or have to be ushered to come out and eat because they are so timid.

 

[AK77]

Its always worth having a lid or canopy on your tank for a few reasons. Firstly, it stops fish from leaping out of the water and ending up inside the cat. Secondly, its helps prevent airborne contaminents getting into the water. I live on a busy street and have my bedroom windows open pretty much 24/7. The amount of black dust/dirt that collects on my window ledge is astounding.

Although its important for oxygen exchange and cooling during the summer months, providing air can still get into the tank, a lid of some description is a worthwhile addition.

 

[injektion]

Its always worth having a lid or canopy on your tank for a few reasons. Firstly, it stops fish from leaping out of the water and ending up inside the cat. Secondly, its helps prevent airborne contaminents getting into the water. I live on a busy street and have my bedroom windows open pretty much 24/7. The amount of black dust/dirt that collects on my window ledge is astounding.

Although its important for oxygen exchange and cooling during the summer months, providing air can still get into the tank, a lid of some description is a worthwhile addition.

i have a glass cover so that's not much of an issue. the only place it could jump out from would be where the wires come out of the tank and where the aquaclear filter sits. i still can't find any remnants of the body so i kind of gave up. i don't have any pets in the house so nothing could have ate it if it did jump out. and it should have stunk up the house by now if it did jump out of the tank as both gobies would have started to decompose by now.

i only like them because they sift the sand and keep it nice and clean, otherwise they seem to be a too much of a hassle to keep.

any suggestions on good sand cleaners/sifters? i know people say nass. snails do a good job of turning sand over but it doesn't seem to do it in a large scale like gobies do.

 

[AK77]

Its always worth having a lid or canopy on your tank for a few reasons. Firstly, it stops fish from leaping out of the water and ending up inside the cat. Secondly, its helps prevent airborne contaminents getting into the water. I live on a busy street and have my bedroom windows open pretty much 24/7. The amount of black dust/dirt that collects on my window ledge is astounding.

Although its important for oxygen exchange and cooling during the summer months, providing air can still get into the tank, a lid of some description is a worthwhile addition.

i have a glass cover so that's not much of an issue. the only place it could jump out from would be where the wires come out of the tank and where the aquaclear filter sits. i still can't find any remnants of the body so i kind of gave up. i don't have any pets in the house so nothing could have ate it if it did jump out. and it should have stunk up the house by now if it did jump out of the tank as both gobies would have started to decompose by now.

i only like them because they sift the sand and keep it nice and clean, otherwise they seem to be a too much of a hassle to keep.

any suggestions on good sand cleaners/sifters? i know people say nass. snails do a good job of turning sand over but it doesn't seem to do it in a large scale like gobies do.

That's really strange then. If the tank is covered to that degree, then it would be much more difficult for them to jump out. Just out of interest, how long has the tank been running? Is it possible that you have some kind of predator in the tank, like a mantis shrimp hiding within the rocks?

As far as sand sifters/cleaners go, I can recommend conches. I have an orange lipped one thats been in my tank for a few months now. Its constantly moving around the sand bed, turning it over. It also buries itself in the sand too, just leaving its eyes poking out. Bumblebee nassarius snails are also good for this and are very pretty too. I have no cyano growing on my sand, apart from where it touches the acrylic.

 

[injektion]

yea i have a snowflake moray eel in there but it's only about 5 inches long and just a little thicker than a pencil. it is quite aggressive when it comes to feeding though. and whenever i put my hand in the tank it looks like it wants to have a go at me lol.

i'm assuming the moray either scared the goby so much it jumped out of the tank into the dark abyss or it ate the goby by ripping it into pieces, as it wouldn't be able to swallow it whole without me seeing a huge bump.

i'll look into the conch but i haven't had much success with snails and the like. my hermit crabs are feisty little creatures who've eaten/killed countless snails and killed off lots of other hermits. i think when i started my tank more than a year ago i had around 6 hermits and 10 snails. now i have 2 hermits and 4 snails lol.

 

[milkton]

 

[-Nemo-]

More than likely the eel got it...