Bumblebee Gobies

[LauraFrog]

I've got a spare 6 gallon tank, space to put it, everything I need to go in it and enough mature media to instantly cycle it. I've been sort of thinking all week, I wonder if I could turn that sucker brackish... hmm. (Neale, I hate you!!!!!) I saw a bumblebee goby last week and got thinking even more. Well I saw it again today and that clinched it. The fish is not full grown, about 1/2 to 3/4 inch. It was being kept in an overstocked freshwater tank with boisterous tetras and sucking algae eaters, and by the concave stomach I think it's fairly safe to say it's been offered nothing in the way of decent food but has been expected to fight fish four times its size or bigger for scraps of inadequate flake. I had to rescue him, because surely nothing a brackish beginner could do could possibly be worse than that living hell. (That is the WORST lfs... in the same tank, they had Chanda ranga in freshwater and tiny inch long halfbeaks with no notice that they grow large and are highly predatory.)

I put the goby in a one gallon betta tank for the time being. He lost so much colour in the shipping bag that I seriously thought I was going to lose him before I got him acclimatised to my water, but he's now settled in relatively well. He will be moved into his permanent home tomorrow with any luck, because all I have to do is put the substrate in the tank, whip up a quick scape (since I won't be planting it the scape should only take a few hours and I've got an idea in mind for the tank already) and let the filter run for a few hours to clear the water, then I can put him in.

- What substrate should I use? I have light coloured coarse sand (1-2mm grain or a bit less, dust washed out) and light coloured pea gravel. I also have some black fine gravel, but I haven't got very much (not enough for a planted tank, maybe enough for this) and it's been exposed to columnaris so I would need to boil it. (A lot of hassle).
- Are the nitrifiers the same? Since most of the bacteria-in-a-bottle products I have seen say they are for fresh or salt water I figured I could instantly cycle the tank with mature media from an established freshwater tank. I mean, a half inch fish doesn't produce much waste. Failing that, should I get some mature marine media? My LFS will give me some if I ask nicely.
- I have him in fresh water because that's what he's been in and I figured that changing the salinity as well as the temp, pH and hardness would be too much for a fish in his weakened condition to cop. What sort of SG should I aim for and how slowly should I increase the salt?
- My water is very soft, pH neutral. do I need to be adding anything other than salt (ie mineral salts/water hardener?)
- How many bumblebees should I put in a six gal (ASSUMING I can get more - tbh it's better for the fish if that LFS has decided they aren't selling/aren't worth the trouble) and would there be room for some Pseudomugil? (P. signifer/P. gertrudae - adults 1.25in max, fresh to marine conditions appropriate, prefers to be kept in schools. Tank has excellent filtration approx 10x/hour with huge amount of media space for tank size.)
- I don't think he's eaten in a long while as the fish have probably been fed some random tropical formulation not suitable for these. I am aware that they're difficult to feed and willing to provide whatever he needs - should I be looking at wild live food (which is suitable in size, free and easy to get) or brine shrimp? How do I get him eating, because he's in no condition to be mucking about.


Thanks for any help. A bit of an impulse buy I know, but I know I can look after him if he's not too far gone. I had to give him a chance... I'm always doing this, my betta rescuing record is a betta board joke.

 

[Hayleamorgan]

Hi Laura
I have 3 of these little besties in my brackish tank and they seem to eat the small frozen bloodworm best but they do seem to have a pick at all the little scraps my messy F8's drop. If he is that hungry i would have thought he would eat the frozen blood worm but if you have live that may well be better.
They are such fun to watch. Mine are always chasing each other. Try and get a couple more if you can.
xx
Oh in the tank with mine they have small/fine white/algae coloured gravel and lots of things to hide in and under.

 

[LauraFrog]

Okay, thanks for the advice. He's still in the 1 gal at the moment. I loaded some carnivore granules into a syringe last night (they're the smallest granules I have and he is TINY) and squirted them at his face. He ate a few of them, but he's still got that concave gut, I hate the look of it. If he was anything else i would treat for internal parasites but in his case I'd say it's just lack of suitable food.

I'll put up some pics when I set the tank up. It might be a bit tannin stained because I'm using wood that hasn't been soaked. I do soak most wood before I use it, but mainly because my other tanks are FW and tannins don't look so great in all of them.

 

[LauraFrog]

I got some live food but I think it's too big for him, he attacks it and then spits it out. I'll get some artemia eggs tomorrow... he should eat artemia nauplii, right?

Anybody re. how fast I should increase the salinity? I can mail order these so I'll be getting some more (2 or 3 more?) and maybe Pseudomugil furcatus, but I haven't heard it confirmed that those have been found in brackish water. Most of the genus Pseudomugil are fresh to marine, salinity don't bother them in the least.

I've got the six gallon set up but I'm scared to put him in it now... I'm scared I'd lose him in all that intricate woodwork and never see him again. I think it's safer to leave him in the little tank until I have him eating.

 

[Hayleamorgan]

Hi Laura.
When i first set up my brackish tank i raised it very slowly each weekly water change so not to kill the bacteria. I raised it 0.0001 eachtime till i got it to an sg of 1.005 then let stay there for a while. But with brackish it does not matter too much if it fluctuates (sp). Mine will differ from anything between 1.004 to 1.008 (not all at once).

Def get more they are so great to watch esp when they are guarding there territory!!

When i first got mine they were very skinny, It doent take long to fatten them up!

Have you tried small frozen bloodworm? Mine go mad for it!

xxx

 

[LauraFrog]

Okay, I'll try that. Going to the LFS tomorrow morning to get salt with any luck, the stuff I have has gone wet and crusty and smells awful. It's probably safe but I still don't want to use it. Bad seal on the bag. I'll pick up some bloodworm while I'm there. I must say though he hasn't shown interest in anything that doesn't move. The sand is full of things I've put in there to try and coax him to eat. One gallon uncycled is not a great idea, I don't think. I'm considering moving him to a breeder net in my cycled 22 gal, because until I can get salt one FW tank is as good as another and cycled has gotta be better than not.

Should I try artemia nauplii? He's so darn tiny that all I've tried him on so far is pond food, shaved fish flesh and the various things I feed my fry. Normally if I pick up an abused fish and it won't eat (most often bettas) I use guppy fry until I can wean it onto dead food, but that's not gonna happen cause a guppy fry is 1/3 the size of the fish I'm trying to feed and bigger than the pond food I was offering earlier. Motile Red Dots are smaller than mozzie larvae as well. If I had microworm I'd use that but I can't get a culture, and I think liquifry is too small.

Poor little sucker, I don't wanna lose him now. He's been through more at the hands of ignorant pet stores than any fish should have to. (My parents can't decide what's worse - the Multiple Tank Syndrome, or the Fish Rescue-itis.)

 

[Hayleamorgan]

You would be surprised what they can eat mine eat worms nearly as long as they are. You never know he might take the guppy.
I remember when i first got my F8 and he didnt eat a thing for about 6 days. It was horrible i didnt think he was gonna make it but then on day i tryed him with blood worm again and he finally ate it. Now i cant stop him eating. He will eat anything. just keep trying but try not to leave too much of the food in as it will make your water nasty and will prob put him off even more.

xxx

 

[LauraFrog]

He looked terrible last night so I rigged up a brine shrimp hatchery and then stuck him in a betta pot full of water with salt in it. Even that move stressed him out so much I thought he was going to slide on me, but he looks a lot better this morning. I figured I had to get him into something smaller and bare bottomed for the shrimps so I might as well do it all at once (water change, adding salt and moving him) instead of having to put him through all the stress three times. This makes it a lot easier to do partial water changes as well and to remove gunk from the bottom.

Now I'm going to stress out about the eggs because they aren't hatching... they've been going for 12 hours and no nauplii yet... yeah, I'm a stress puppy where fish are involved.

Thanks for all the help, I appreciate it! (So does the goby, no doubt!)

 

[jennybugs]

BBGs can be notoriously hard to feed.

I have a group of 10 in my brackish tank along with 2 F8 puffs, and they're all fat and round now. Mine really go mad for live small blood worms, brine shrimp, chopped mussel, very small river shrimp that have been put in the tank for the puffs and will try anything that physically floats past their noses. This is because they are really predators, and you may have success with getting him to feed if you have a reasonable current low down in the tank.

Build up some rock caves for him to hide in - small terracotta pots are good - and get him some pals. They like to be in groups from what I can see, and will sort out their territories and interact with each other quite happily. If I lost my F8s I would contemplate keeping these little fish in the big tank as they are so entertaining to watch

BBGs can live well in low end brackish water and I fluctuate mine from 1.001 SG to 1.003-4 regularly. If it's in a freshwater situation at the start, then gradually up the SG 0.001 to 1.003 or there abouts. They will withstand being swapped from fw to a low brackish water quite happily if you acclimate them properly though

I hope your little chap pulls through for you

 

[LauraFrog]

Thanks! I'm glad they're low end brackish cause that means I could keep them with some guppies. The tank is deep so I want something for the top. Salt's about the only thing that toughens up the guppies around here, they are totally gutless. Too much inbreeding.
I'll get some photos of the setup tonight but it's impossible to take them in the day because of glare on the tank. It's 6 gal long and tall... how many more should I get? Two or three? ATM I'm waiting on those blasted brine shrimp eggs which are NOT HATCHING and are driving me thoroughly insane, it's been almost three days. I cannot get any other live food at all. Im isolated in a country town in Australia. I can get some frozen food but there is a limited range and it is EXTREMELY expensive so I don't get it very often. I prefer making my own... my other fish get about half prepared foods and half fresh veggies, meat and fish. I can get pond food but I think that will have to wait until they're full grown because of its size... ditto livebearer fry. I guess the guppies will supply those.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Even if they were high-end brackish you could keep them with guppies.

 

[LauraFrog]

Saves me a lot of mucking around acclimatising them though... it's amazing what salt will do for freshwater raised livebearers, especially mollies, the change is amazing.

 

[jennybugs]

Just checking we're talking marine salt here and not tonic salts, as it's proper marine salt you want

 

[LauraFrog]

Yeah, I'm using marine salt. I have used cooking salt in the past but only as a treatment, not for permanent accomodation of a fish requiring salt. I figured better safe than sorry since the water is very soft, better to use the salt mix also containing minerals.

This is the setup. No salt has been added yet. Photos taken at night with lights on. The water is very tannin stained and I love it, I think I'll use blackwater extract to keep it that way when the wood stops staining. This is my first attempt at a non planted tank so any opinions/ideas for improving it would be appreciated. What do you guys think for the background? I don't want to use internal BG's because they'd take up too much space in such a small nano. Something the colour of the wall behind it (bare concrete) might be nice - ideas?

Anyway, that's the shape of the tank (panoramic tall long) so should I look at three, four or even five gobies in there?

 

[jennybugs]

I would try and create caves for the fish to hide in and a black background. Not sure how many to advise you to keep in a small tank like that...3 maybe? I have 10 in a metre long tank and they do argue over territories even in a long tank like mine. Hope you succeed in feeding them well. They can be tricky to get to feed.