Found a female goby, already have a male, so how would I go about breeding them?

[maroonclown]

I have found a female Randall's Prawn goby (Amblyeleotris randalli) at the LFS. She is very healthy, and I know it is a female because her fin is small compared to a male's of similar size. I am a bit worried about how the established male will react towards her. I plan on first adding the little female (there is a size difference of about 1'') to my quarentine system, in other words, this will be the only normal part of my procedure. After she has been quarintined for a period of 7-14 days, (if she is healthy) I will remove the male from his aquarium, and "introduce" him to the female in the quarentine system. During this time, I will do a little rearanging of the aquarium to break up his old territory, and to make it a little easier on the new female to establish her own territory. After a few hours of "meeting" each other, I plan on moving both of them to display tank. Does anyone see any problems with this, or am I going to be doing things the correct way?

 

This species is one of the few that have been bred in captivity, which is what I hope will happen with these two. Even if I get them to breed, and by some act of God, the eggs hatch, I understand that the fry will be very hard to raise. I will have a rotifer culture ready before they even start to breed, so the food for the fry will be sorted out. Again, by some act of God, I might be able to get one or two babies to survive long enough to sell to the LFS. I realize that the first 2 or three batches probably won't make it, and I'll be lucky to get 3 or 4 survivors out of 150-200 fry. I'll just hope they're "sex-machines", and breed every 2-3 weeks. Thanks in advance.

[kennerd]

kudos: these are some of my favorite fish. Unfortunately, I tried to introduce one to my large pistol shrimp on two occasions, and the first time a diadema dottyback kicked the crap out of the goby on the way in. After the dottyback went on a midnight carpet surfing edventure, I attempted another one. Ends up he tried to pair up with the pistol and the pistol would have no part of him and beat the crap out of him, too.

 

I'd be interested in this, too. No time to do the research right now, but I'll tag along to see what others come up with.

[maroonclown]

Thanks for the support. Sucks that a pistol shrimp wouldn't pair up with it. Maybe a small pistol shrimp would help with the breeding part, after all, they would probably need to feel as comfortable as possible. Is this good logic?

[unsped]

i think a pistol in the wild might help because the gobies are under constant attack. in your aquarium they are not. i wouldn't worry about not having a pistol for breeding in a tank.

 

as for how you breed them, well there are birds, and there are bees ... im not sure the storke can swim though.

[kennerd]

I wouldn't push the pistol issue. I always recommend buynig a goby/pistol already paired up to be sure.

[maroonclown]

Well, thanks for the posts, but I found out it was a male after all. HIS fis was chewed apart by a coral beauty. I'm sorry to say, I will not get it. Thanks for your help with this, and I hope I can track down a real female one day.

[kennerd]

So, I guess you didin;t buy it yet? Kudos on the research before purchase. If you did purchase it, I might be interested in him. PM me if he's available/

[maroonclown]

Didn't buy him. I almost bought it before I figured out that it's fin was damaged, making him look like her. I did find the other fish I was planning on, the marine betta. I can't afford him right now, but I will get him later. Thanks again for the help.

[kennerd]

I'd probably avoid the betta for a few reasons. Great looking fish for sure, but they aren't necessarily reef-safe, as they eat shrimp and other small fish even though they don't touch corals or anemones.

 

Oh, and they grow to a length of 8" at maturity...a little on the big size for a nano.

 

Last, they are nocturnal, o they'll hide most of the day anyway.

[maroonclown]

The actual fish grows to about 4", the rest is fin. Also, the goby and blenny I have are slightly larger than this guy, and I don't think I'm going to include shrimps in the set-up. I think, if I get it that is, I would be more worried about the betta than the other fish. But thanks for your concern.

[kennerd]

What size tank are you running?

[maroonclown]

I would keep it in my 20 long. The ten is filled with three chromis (aka, dinner); the 5 is only a QT. The 20 is the only option (that I can afford) available to me. But he would be the absolute last fish I add (I developed this resistance to "just-one-more-fish syndrom" after 2 boughts of overstocking). And currently, there are only 2 fish, each of them have a very small bioload. I was able to keep a dwarf angel, an anthias, 2 damsels, and a clown in the tank for quite awhile. But, I saw one of those coral gobies on sale at the LFS for $1 each, so I got one. Amazing how such a tiny animal can distroy this already delicate biological capacity. Long story short, the only animal that survived was the clown, which was CB (this proves why you must always buy aquacultured livestock). I know that a betta would push the system as a mature adult, but the one I'm interested in is a 2.75" sub-adult. It can grow into the bio-capacity, instead of making the bio-cap. grow to it. Plus I'll start running a sump and fuge early next year.

[kennerd]

Sounds better

 

Cool looking fish for sure. What kind of coral goby are you referring to for a buck?

[maroonclown]

It was green with red stripes, and about .75" full grown. I think it was a Gobiodon spp., also called clown gobies. That's about all I know, other than they would be sweet fish for a 1 gallon tank. I hope that helps a little bit.

[kennerd]

Yep: had one in my 7 gal....mysteriously disappeared.

[maroonclown]

Disapeared? You mean worm food; literally. How much did you pay for it?