Bumble Bee Gobies

[Lord Spooky]

are these guys freshwater fish also?

 

[BigIan]

http/www.e-aquarium.com.au/bumble_bee_goby.htm

some basic info it also depends on what species as there are many different species and some tolerate it better than others,
i was looking into getting some a while ago but as i couldnt find out the exact species i left off it

 

[Suicidal_AZN]

yes i belive they are freshwater!!!
my lfs sells them there like half and inch neat little fish!!
there only a $1 U.S. dollar at my lfs

 

[raptorrex]

are these guys freshwater fish also?

this may be of help!

http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/breedi...bee_Gobies.html

 

[ac106]

are these guys freshwater fish also?

this may be of help!

http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/breedi...bee_Gobies.html

The first sentence sorta invalidates the article. Brachygobius xanthozona are never traded commercially. Nunes and Doriae are the most common species. You also can't tell most of the species apart without a microscope. Markings really don't help

I am fairly certain I have 3 species in my tank. I keep them at SG 1.005 without a problem and most aquarists will agree that any commonly traded species does great in lightly brackish water that is hard and alkaline.

The hardest part is to get them to eat. No flake or pellets ever. They can almost always be weaned onto frozen food. I have had luck with blood worms & mysis shrimp. Less so with brine.

Most of these fish are freshwater in the wild but for whatever reason; they seem to do better in brackish water in captivity. .

They aren’t overly hard to keep outside of feeding. They need to be able to carve out their own territory although each of these territories can be very small. Each doesn’t need their own cave but they need something to sit on. So lots of rocks, wood, etc.

 

[raptorrex]

are these guys freshwater fish also?

this may be of help!

http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/breedi...bee_Gobies.html

The first sentence sorta invalidates the article. Brachygobius xanthozona are never traded commercially. Nunes and Doriae are the most common species. You also can't tell most of the species apart without a microscope. Markings really don't help

I am fairly certain I have 3 species in my tank. I keep them at SG 1.005 without a problem and most aquarists will agree that any commonly traded species does great in lightly brackish water that is hard and alkaline.

The hardest part is to get them to eat. No flake or pellets ever. They can almost always be weaned onto frozen food. I have had luck with blood worms & mysis shrimp. Less so with brine.

Most of these fish are freshwater in the wild but for whatever reason; they seem to do better in brackish water in captivity. .

They aren’t overly hard to keep outside of feeding. They need to be able to carve out their own territory although each of these territories can be very small. Each doesn’t need their own cave but they need something to sit on. So lots of rocks, wood, etc.

you say Brachygobius xanthozona, was never comercially sold? it seems, if this is true, that most people who keep these fish are wrong. as this fish is the subject of many threads and so on.

 

[Fella]

http/www.tropicalfishkeeper.com/content/view/45/48/

I interviewed Naomi Deventhal, a goby expert about this some time ago, and the answers are in the interview above.

As for my own experience, I kept a BBG in freshwater for 2 years without problems.

 

[ac106]

you say Brachygobius xanthozona, was never comercially sold? it seems, if this is true, that most people who keep these fish are wrong. as this fish is the subject of many threads and so on.

I cant speak for the entire history of home aquaria but currently no, they are never sold.

what fish keepers have are Brachygobius doriae, nunus or sabanus


From nmonks Brackish FAQ: Many aquarium books will refer to Hypogymnogobius xanthozona, a very rare species that is not commercially collected or traded (there are in fact very few specimens even in museum collections). Where this name is used in the aquarium literature, it is safe to assume that one of the Brachygobius species is actually being referred to.

 

[raptorrex]

i take your point, and have now in depth knowledge myself, its just i could link ten or twelve sites/forums/references to this fish, and indeed the link by Fella that all say something different. i'm sure you can see the problem. please take no offence, its just odd, i feel, that nearly everything on the net about these fish is wrong! and all these links clearly identify Brachygobius xanthozona, as the fish they are talking about.

 

[ac106]

i take your point, and have now in depth knowledge myself, its just i could link ten or twelve sites/forums/references to this fish, and indeed the link by Fella that all say something different. i'm sure you can see the problem. please take no offence, its just odd, i feel, that nearly everything on the net about these fish is wrong! and all these links clearly identify Brachygobius xanthozona, as the fish they are talking about.

No offence taken. You can link to 500 sites, they are wrong, its not xanthozona. The care is the same though so it really doesnt matter.

read Neale Monks Brackish FAQ, its accurate: http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/brackfaqpart1.html

 

[andywg]

i take your point, and have now in depth knowledge myself, its just i could link ten or twelve sites/forums/references to this fish, and indeed the link by Fella that all say something different. i'm sure you can see the problem. please take no offence, its just odd, i feel, that nearly everything on the net about these fish is wrong! and all these links clearly identify Brachygobius xanthozona, as the fish they are talking about.

But fella links to an interview with someone who identifies and classifies gobies for her job as a biologist, the same person gave nmonks the information for his book. How many of the sites on the net refer to that sort of expert knowledge? I'll bet very few.

One should also consider that BBG are next to impossible to identify without counting scales under a microscope.

As to FW/BW, it seems that those in the trade do equally well in both water, with some species being collected from soft acidic streams. A biger problem is people buying them and offering inappropriate food. Mine have gone past the 2 year mark in FW with no problems, though my water is slightly alkaline and quite hard.

 

[nmonks]

Well this is fun! As Fella, ac106, and AndyWG have said Brachygobius xanthozona isn't traded. Period. End of story.

The taxonomy of BBGs is complicated because the species fall into "groups" containing two or more similar looking species. The B. sabanus, B. doriae, B. xanthomelas group are essentially indistinguishable from the point of view of aquarists. Ditto the Brachygobius nunus and B. mekongensis group.

As for what water conditions they require, I don't think it matters much. I don't think there are many *exclusively* freshwater species, and all seem to tolerate up to SG 1.005 (something that holds true for freshwater gobies generally). Most BBGs die prematurely because they starve to death. In standard community tanks they are difficult to feed because they don't take flake and they aren't "scavengers" like some other bottom living fish. It doesn't really matter what water conditions you keep them in, provided you get some food to them. If you want them in brackish, that's probably a good idea because you can feed them brine shrimp easily and the shrimp will live indefinitely under such conditions. So no risk of starvation. But if you're prepared to work a bit harder to get the right sort of live foods (or substitutes) to them, then keep them in freshwater if that works better for you.

Cheers, Neale

PS. According to Naomi, if I recall correctly, essentially every photo in a fishkeeping book and magazine of a Brachygobius species is misidentified. This was one reason she worked so hard with me on the Brackish book -- to make sure we put some reliable photos out there for aquarists, plus some reliable information. The Aqualog Brackish book is also excellent in this respect, but even things like the Baensch books should be considered suspect.

 

[DarkEntity]

Ive picked up some Bumblebee Gobies and am currently keeping them at 1.005 with my Fig8's