Goby dragons?

[Koda jr.]

My mom(Koda) showed me goby dragons at the lfs today.They are so cool looking and I really want one.I love dragons.Mom says we'd need a lot more information than the lfs can give us.Does anyone keep them or know much about them?

We need to know what size tank is ok and what tankmates they can have...if any.

Thanks

Koda jr

 

[Erised]

Dragon Goby, aka Violet Goby:

Quote from CFC:

"The Gobioides broussonettii requires brackish water to survive, when kept in freshwater they waste away and die. They also have a very specialised diet as they are filter feeders which have to be fed with tiny live and frozen foods, bloodworms are too big for them to manage really so baby brine shrimp, small daphnia and frozen cyclops should be used to insure they are well fed and healthy. Because of this diet they generally dont do well when kept in normal community tanks and should really be kept in a species tank"

They get up to 25 inches, so will require quite a large tank.

Another quote from CFC:

"The largest fish a dragon goby can predatate on are fry, they are actually filter feeder that feed in much the same way as whales do by straining water through their gills to collect tiny micro organisms.

When buying a dragon goby you must be careful which one you buy, many of the ones sold in lfs's are Gobioides broussonettii which is a brackish fish and will not live long in freshwater, the freshwater species is Gobioides peruanus which can be identified by its lack of vertiacl dark bands"

I'm afraid thats all the info I can give you

 

[SirMinion]

We have two!
also known as violet gobies, they're peacfull to other tankmates but aggressive & terratorial to each other, They need a sand substrate to burrow in and despite having large mouths, are filter feeders.

Dragon gobies range from freshwater rivers right down to estuary mouths and can be kept in either brackish or freshwater depending on which of the two species you have.

Our two are in our freshwater community tank and they are two of the most active fish we have! They've put on an inch in length and have got quite fat since we've had them. They seem to be thriving.

They eat any small meaty or veggie foods such as blood worm and even flakes that sink to the bottom. It's vitally important that you make sure that the other fish aren't getting to the food first because the gobies are almost blind and look for their food by smell.

Our gobies can often be found sucking on a algae wafer or gulping in the detrius from the other fish breaking up a veggie tablet.

Their burrowing habits mean that your sand will never get compacted or develop anaerobic pockets. sometimes they move all the sand in the tank from one end to the other overnight!

 

[Koda jr.]

Thanks both of you.It's awfully hard to find good sites about them even searching Google.One site said they get to be 2 feet and another said 6 inches
I haven't yet found a pic that looked like what we saw.But they were quite long and pretty active,and looked a lot like a Chinese dragon.The lfs people don't know much about fish.They put bettas in with other fish in nearly every tank from goldfish to gouramis!!

I still really want one but mom says we need to wait until we can get a big enough tank and everything.Since we might be moving that could be a while

Koda jr

 

[SirMinion]

You want photos?

Here's some pictures of one of our guys taken the day we got him. He's very, very thin in these pictures, but he's bulked up now.

 

[Koda]

Yup...that's what we saw.I liked them about as much as my boy

I'd love to get him one but I'm not too sure about setting up another tank right now as we may be moving soon.We have several tanks already but they are fairly small.And I just got him a crayfish which has a tank of it's own.No one warned me that aquariums are habit forming

Thanks for the info and pics