Shrimp Goby: The Experiment

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isaac.croas

Premium Member
Let me preface this by saying, I've observed the behavior of orange spot gobies for awhile now, and find that they are extremely passive and tolerant of others of their species. Lets hope this continues to hold true in this experiment.

So as many of the fish stores know, I've been looking for pairs of shrimp gobies. I got lucky and found some over the last few weeks and am currently running an experiment.

I started with a pair of orange spot gobies. Unfornately I had some issues with my tank recently and lost one of the gobies. I went back and sure enough they had 2 more gobies (not paired) and decided what the heck... let's give this a shot. So I throw them in last week and immediately 2 pair up and theres a lone single goby. Odd thing is, they all share the same burrow and seem to alternate pairings.

Well last night, I go to DNA for their awesome 20% off sale and lo and behold.... they have 3 orange spot gobies. 2 of them as a pair and a lone ranger. I buy them after much debate (they had 3 bumblebee gobies that had a pair + a lone) and decide hey, let's see if we can get 6 gobies in one burrow? (I know I'm crazy).

I get home, and toss them in on the goby side of the tank (it's 2 large Marco's rocks with lots of spots under to hide). They fall down 1 lands in the pile of the three other gobies and the other 2 land on the front part of the rock. I grab my little algae cleaner and gently shoo them over to the other four gobies now. No issues. None. Not even a single large open mouth staredown or anything! In fact, 2 of them re-paired and the other original pair are less than 2 inches from each other.

I have a picture from last night, but it's very blue that I will post later. My future plans are to buy a bunch of randalli's pistol shrimps and pair them off in a 10 gallon and transfer the pairs of pistols to my 90 gallon.

Has anyone tried anything like this before? Or am I a crazy goby loving soul? This afternoon I spotted three gobies around the rock and a fourth poked it's head out from their main hole. So no fighting it seems like.
 
So they are doing this thing that I call the goby stack. 1 will stack on top of other, presumably it's mate. I seem to have 2 sets of pairs and 2 lone rangers, but they are all still hanging out with each other right now. The lone ones will go wander the tank, but end up at the hole after awhile.
 
Interesting. Always heard only one goby to the tank unless a mated pair. I've got a yellow watchman/tiger pistol pair that never leave their half of the tank. I've also got a red banded snapping shrimp under rocks on the other side of the tank. I thought I had lost the red banded over two years ago but then he reappeared a couple weeks ago. Do you think I could add another goby and have it pair up with the red banded shrimp? Potential problems with the different gobies?
 
@Baldguy wrote:
Interesting. Always heard only one goby to the tank unless a mated pair. I've got a yellow watchman/tiger pistol pair that never leave their half of the tank. I've also got a red banded snapping shrimp under rocks on the other side of the tank. I thought I had lost the red banded over two years ago but then he reappeared a couple weeks ago. Do you think I could add another goby and have it pair up with the red banded shrimp? Potential problems with the different gobies? said:
My 20 gallon has a high fin goby and a yellow watchman that share the same pistol shrimp and holes. I think cross species is very hit or miss. I just got lucky, there was some aggression shown at first but they are used to each other now. Even seen them poking their heads out together out of the same burrow hole guarding for my pistol shrimp.

Goby aggression is very different then other fish species, they do alot of warning with their open mouthing. It looks like their yawning but it's them puffing out and warning others.
Click to expand...
 
Yep, my YWG does it all the time when anyone gets near. Just the open mouth. Never seen him actually nip another fish. So maybe I add a peaceful goby and hopefully he pairs up with the lone red banded snapping shrimp or at least learns to get along with the YWG or evens moves in with the YWG/tiger. You clearly like the orange spot. Try that in my situation? Or try the high fin since you had good luck with that and a YWG? Just realized my red banded is a randalls. They naturally pair up with several of the shrimp gobies.
 
Randall's have the rounded first fin. I would try either a high fin or an orange spot, but again it's risky. You have to watch the fish to make sure they don't go after each other. Gobies can attack, it just seems that they would rather just warn off first. Always keep the safety of your fish first :)

I did the orange spot because of availability and temperament.
 
12/31 update:

5 of the gobies still share the burrow/area together. The 6th one is kind of a lone ranger and only goes to the goby area of the tank once in awhile. The pairs also seem to intermingle with each other, and swap male/female between the two sets.

So far 0 aggression.
 
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