Any Suggestions On Veggie Food For My Gobies?

[Ami]

Hi guys

I've tried to feed the stubborn little sods peas, lettuce and courgettes but they don't even bother investigating.

At first I thought it was because the pieces were too large and they therefore sank, making the fish ignore them. So I chopped them into small pieces so that they'd get caught up in the flow from the filter but the fish aren't interested.

They eat blood worms and gamma shrimp fine, whether it floats or sinks, so I reckon they don't like the smell of the veggies or something!

I've read that Knight Gobies need some veggies in their diet and my Clay looks a little constipated today, so I'm anxious to make sure they eat healthy. Do you reckon I could get Jamie to abandon his quest to make kids eat healthy and start on fish instead?

Thanks for your help,
Ami

PS - CFC, there's still a complete lack of info on the web regarding Clay Gobies, so when are you going to put all your experience to use and post us a profile?

 

[nmonks]

Clay gobies (in my experience) are in fact the sleeper goby Dormitator (Batanga) lebretonis, so if you do a search using the Latin name, you might find the information you're after. You can see some pictures here:

Dormitator lebretonis at FishBase

They're also on page 1070 of Baensch vol. 2, and you can read something about this fish and sleeper gobies in general in the Brackish FAQ.

They are omnivores, but like most sleepers Dormitator lebretonis leans towards being predatory. Bloodworms and so on will be accepted very readily. In Baensch they recommend boiled vegetables, so that might be the thing. Next time you microwave some peas or whatever, try squishing a small amount in tank so that the gobies can east smaller, softer morsels.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Ami]

Clay gobies (in my experience) are in fact the sleeper goby Dormitator (Batanga) lebretonis, so if you do a search using the Latin name, you might find the information you're after. You can see some pictures here:

Dormitator lebretonis at FishBase

They're also on page 1070 of Baensch vol. 2, and you can read something about this fish and sleeper gobies in general in the Brackish FAQ.

They are omnivores, but like most sleepers Dormitator lebretonis leans towards being predatory. Bloodworms and so on will be accepted very readily. In Baensch they recommend boiled vegetables, so that might be the thing. Next time you microwave some peas or whatever, try squishing a small amount in tank so that the gobies can east smaller, softer morsels.

Cheers,

Neale

Thanks for the reply Neale.

I've tried the microwaved peas - whole, chopped and squished with and without skins - but no luck there.

I've tried searching on google under both Dormitator Lebrentonis and Batanga Lebrentonis, as well as Clay Goby. Tha largest results are under D. Lebrentonis (no quotation marks!), which gives you 12 pages. The majority of which are either not in English or are taxanomical listings (spelling I know... ) and as I'm neither a linguist or a biologist...

The only useful info I've ever found were links back to a couple of posts from CFC, one from you, and the links you gave me in your last post. That's still not a lot of info though compared to what you could find if you typed in "Neon Tetra"!

I'm checking almost on a weekly basis in the vain hope that someone somewhere will suddenly know a tonne of stuff that would be practical.

 

[nmonks]

Ami,

These are easy fish to look after, and while not sold commonly, they are fairly widely available within the trade. I believe that they're all wild caught though, so probably seasonal from West Africa.

Anyway, they're fresh to slightly brackish but apparently prefer neutral, moderately hard freshwater as adults, though they may need brackish water for spawning. Baensch recommends water conditions similar to those of Morgunda morgunda. Sterba (under Eleotris lebretonis) says that it lives "chiefly in fresh water" and describes the fish as "very hardy and extraordinarily easily satisfied", going so far as to say it will eat "kitchen scraps"!

They are somewhat midwater swimmers, which is a clue to their prefered diet, small aquatic animals that drift by. Mosquito larvae and bloodworms are an ideal staple. I wouldn't trust them with very small fish like livebearer fry or even neons. Sleeper gobies all tend to be somewhat piscivorous. You could also try cooked spinach, which is often accepted by vegetarian fish. If all else fails, just alternate their regular food with veggie flakes (those sold for guppies and mollies). Even predatory fish take them, and I feed these regularly to my halfbeaks to make up their algae ration.

These fish grow to around 10 cm, are sociable but territorial, and can be bred in captivity. They'd make good companions for things like kribensis and dwarf Synodontis.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[CFC]

Hi Ami, glad to hear all the gobys are doing well, hows the little flounder doing?

When i had them i never gave them any veggie foods, just their basic diet of shrimp, bloodworm and tiny pieces of chopped mussel or cockle. If you are really worried you could try soaking the shrimp in a vitamin supplement for an hour or so before feeding but to be honest as long as they are getting something of a varied diet i wouldnt worry.

All the fish were bought in brackish water and kept in brackish with a SG of 1.005 water for the time i had them with no visable problems.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Try breaking algae wafers into small pieces. Mine gobbled them up.

 

[Ami]

Hi Ami, glad to hear all the gobys are doing well, hows the little flounder doing?

When i had them i never gave them any veggie foods, just their basic diet of shrimp, bloodworm and tiny pieces of chopped mussel or cockle. If you are really worried you could try soaking the shrimp in a vitamin supplement for an hour or so before feeding but to be honest as long as they are getting something of a varied diet i wouldnt worry.

All the fish were bought in brackish water and kept in brackish with a SG of 1.005 water for the time i had them with no visable problems.

Hi mate....erm flounder hasn't made it this long I'm afraid. I lost him about a month ago - he was fine at night and feeding ok, next morning he was doing his usual hiding in the sand thing, but when I got home from work he was in the same place so I tried to flick sand over him and he didn't move.

Not sure what happened cos there wasn't anything obvious wrong. Was wandering if you knew how old he was though, in case he was just too old?

Maybe he just doesn't like my house as much or he was missing the lil puffer. How is the puffer - got any bigger yet?

The gobies are excellent though! They love gamma shrimp and bloodworm, but I didn't have much luck with chopped cockles / mussles the few times I tried them. It is the variation part I'm worried about!

Am planning on trying them with eggs from prawns or something as that's a good source of protein, but it's not as easy to get fresh prawns at this time of year.

I've been keeping them in the same SG as before, but added some FW the other day when I was doing their water change becuase there'd been too much evaporation in the tank and the SG was climbing. Since then, Cassius (Clay, geddit? ) has been much more spritely so I'm thinking from what Neale said that maybe he could be doing with less salt and more fresh?

Ami

Ami,

These are easy fish to look after, and while not sold commonly, they are fairly widely available within the trade. I believe that they're all wild caught though, so probably seasonal from West Africa.

Anyway, they're fresh to slightly brackish but apparently prefer neutral, moderately hard freshwater as adults, though they may need brackish water for spawning. Baensch recommends water conditions similar to those of Morgunda morgunda. Sterba (under Eleotris lebretonis) says that it lives "chiefly in fresh water" and describes the fish as "very hardy and extraordinarily easily satisfied", going so far as to say it will eat "kitchen scraps"!

They are somewhat midwater swimmers, which is a clue to their prefered diet, small aquatic animals that drift by. Mosquito larvae and bloodworms are an ideal staple. I wouldn't trust them with very small fish like livebearer fry or even neons. Sleeper gobies all tend to be somewhat piscivorous. You could also try cooked spinach, which is often accepted by vegetarian fish. If all else fails, just alternate their regular food with veggie flakes (those sold for guppies and mollies). Even predatory fish take them, and I feed these regularly to my halfbeaks to make up their algae ration.

These fish grow to around 10 cm, are sociable but territorial, and can be bred in captivity. They'd make good companions for things like kribensis and dwarf Synodontis.

Cheers,

Neale

Thanks for the info Neale. He doesn't seem too territorial and gets on really well with the pair of Knights. I've no idea if he's male or female though (any ideas CFC?) - how'd you sex these guys?

Good tips re: flake food from you and pufferpunk. I've never really fed flake food to any of my fish cos it's always seemed so unnatural, but maybe it's about time I gave it a go!




Eek! How'd I manage to reply to two separate posts and get them in one??!

I replied to CFC, then edited it because I wanted to change something. I was transferred back to the board after submitting the edited post, clicked reply on Neale's post and then when I added the reply I discovered it had managed to get in amongst my other reply!

I'm thoroughly confused and obviously sooo out of practice.
)

Ok - it did it again even though I'd just clicked add reply on the topic, rather than on someone's post.

I've closed explorer and come back so lets see what happens now. I may just give up and go to bed!


Ok - previews ok so here goes....

Doh!

That's it. I'm off before I go thoroughly insane!!!

Sorry for the humungous post. G'night.
)

 

[nmonks]

Ami,

Just a quick comment. Freshwater flounders / soles are difficult to look after, and most need brackish water if not marine conditions despite their "freshwater" moniker. They're nocturnal, and primarily carnivorous, and probably need live foods to begin with. Some people do alright with them, but by and large they're considered difficult fish for inclusion in generic community tanks. So losing a flounder or sole for no obvious reason is indeed not unusual. My guess is starvation is more of an issue than salinity, but both are probably factors.

Clay gobies on the other hand are well known for being really easy to care for.

Baensch (vol. 2, p 1070) suggests that males can be distinguished by "longer posterior rays in the second dorsal and the anal fin".

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Ami]

Ami,

Just a quick comment. Freshwater flounders / soles are difficult to look after, and most need brackish water if not marine conditions despite their "freshwater" moniker. They're nocturnal, and primarily carnivorous, and probably need live foods to begin with. Some people do alright with them, but by and large they're considered difficult fish for inclusion in generic community tanks. So losing a flounder or sole for no obvious reason is indeed not unusual. My guess is starvation is more of an issue than salinity, but both are probably factors.

Clay gobies on the other hand are well known for being really easy to care for.

Baensch (vol. 2, p 1070) suggests that males can be distinguished by "longer posterior rays in the second dorsal and the anal fin".

Cheers,

Neale

He was in the brackish tank and CFC had no probs, so I'm presuming it was just my bad luck. Poor guy was feeding on the bloodworms but seemed to prefer the gamma shrimp.

I only have one Clay so I can't really compare his fins with anything else!

 

[ananda1]

Regarding getting knight gobies to eat their veggies...
I had good luck with OSI's spirulina flakes -- I was feeding them to the mollies in the tank, and the knight gobies gobbled them up, too. I read the label and found out those flakes had a high shrimp content.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Algae wafers aren't exactally flake.

 

[nmonks]

Are you sure CFC and yourself have/had the same sole? At least half a dozen species get sold in the UK, and at least some are probably strictly freshwater. The common American species (hogchokers for example) are indeed mostly brackish to marine, but several of the Asian one prefer freshwater or are only found in freshwater.

The problem is that no book that I know of has a decent selection of photographs that allow you to identify them reliably, and the names they come in under are almost certainly wrong. The one I got from Wholesale Tropicals was sold as Euryglossa pan -- and whatever else it is, that isn't the species!

This site looks useful, but it's in Japanese so you'll need to run it through something like AltaVista translation if you don't speak that language. As you can see, this guy is keeping some species with neon tetras, and his specimens look to be very healthy.

Cheers,

Neale

He was in the brackish tank and CFC had no probs, so I'm presuming it was just my bad luck. Poor guy was feeding on the bloodworms but seemed to prefer the gamma shrimp.

 

[CFC]

These were my fish neale, when i recently had to shut some tanks down Ami rehomed all the fish from my small brackish tank.

I had kept the flounder for about a year/18 months, certainly not long enough for old age to be the cause of death.

 

[nmonks]

Fair enough!

Neale

These were my fish neale, when i recently had to shut some tanks down Ami rehomed all the fish from my small brackish tank.

 

[Ami]

Are you sure CFC and yourself have/had the same sole?

Hi Neale - sorry for taking so long to reply, but I have to share the pc with my Halo2 addicted hubbie.

I was going to say I was pretty sure, unless he suffered an alien abduction in between my house and CFC's, but I see he got there before I did!

The gobies are still doing wonderfully and seem very at home in their plastic drainage pipes! They like peeking out to watch you go by and then swimming around like mad when they think no-ones looking. CFC will be glad to know that they're feeding well still so I guess I was just not meant to be a flounder keeper.


Ami