Desert Gobies

[Baccus]

Just wanted to share some shots of these great little Aussie battlers, unfortunately I am down to what I am pretty sure are two females, but they are real characters and fun to watch.

[Squiggle]

Awesome shots Baccus, they definitely look very cool & incredibly well fed! :encouragement:

[Baccus]

Thanks, they are absolute gluttons when it comes to food, they do eat the odd snail but not consistently. One of them had a snail munched up and stuck in her gob for over a day, just when I thought I would have to do some careful removal she finally either spat it out or finished swallowing it.

They are also effective shrimp cullers, but they have not looked twice at endler fry.

[durro68]

They are a cool fish Baccus!

[warren63]

Great looking little natives. As mentioned they are well fed!

[fishmosy]

Shame you only have the females. The coloration of males can be absolutely fantastic.

They are looking good nonetheless.

[poeticwinter]

looking interesting this fish :)

[Baccus]

I did have a couple of males, one commited suicide and the other died I suspect of old age, I am wanting to get some more males but they are hard to come by.

One of my now deceased males

I also have now got some Finke River Gobies (closely related to the desert gobies) and am waiting for them to grow up and hopefully be able to breed them.

[OzShrimp]

their retty cool looking do they breed easily?

[Baccus]

From what I have read they are pretty easy to get to spawn the males guard the eggs in a hollow cavity and will even allow other females to add more eggs to his brood so that he ends up with eggs of all ages in his hollow. I think the difficulty will stem from actually raising the fry, but gobies are at least gluttons for food, so I am hoping once the fry start eating their is no stopping them.

I used to have a heap of endlers in the goby tank, and I am pretty sure if the gobies did spawn and the fry hatched that the endlers cleaned them up. The interesting thing to know was that the gobies didn't even consider eating the never ending supply of endlers. I was hoping the gobies would eat snails, and I think they do, just the snails need to be small, other wise they just leave the snails to keep growing and breeding.

[Baccus]

My order of desert gobies arrived and so far only one mature male in the batch, I am really hoping that either there is a small/ young male in with them or that the new boy gets straight down to business and starts wooing his harem of girls.

[OzShrimp]

any photos ?

[Baccus]

My new male, he is still settling in, but being true to goby style is already hovering food. I also caught one of my smaller gobies with eyes bigger than his mouth trying to snap up a rather tempting subadult male endler. The endler out manouvered the goby easily, and the goby gave up and went back to snuffling out food on the floor of the tank.

Sometime today I have to catch out the 6 Finke River Gobies and give them their own tank to grow up and hopefully breed in.

[OzShrimp]

I find them really fascinating, what sort of tank requirements and stuff do they have, also how much do they cost? Are they easy to care for

[Baccus]

The desert gobies might be slightly easier to look after than the Finke River Gobies ( I now have both species), but its only early days that I have had the Finke River gobies for.

The desert gobies can handle water saltier than the ocean or pure fresh, generally they will do well in some water that is slightly hard as opposed to soft like pure rain water. They are a peaceful fish and have no swim bladder so they tend to hang around the bottom of the tank, although they will swim in a jerky fashion to the surface and gulp air. A long shallow tank is probably the best for these guys so they can easily reach the surface of the water. A lid is also another good idea because these guys will jump out of the tank

They are NOT shrimp safe, in fact they like nothing more than a shrimp snack, which can be good if you need to do a lot of culling. They are also partial to snails, I saw one of my female gobies have a mashed up snail stuck in her mouth for over a day until she finally managed to finish scoffing it. They are real food gluttons, mine have taken readily to almost all the sinking crumbles and pellets I have tried them on. And they get to know the person who feeds them and the general time, they will go crazy begging for food any time they see you. In the literature relating to desert gobies they also say they eat algae or other plant life.

Because of their feeding habit of grubbing about on the substrate, I would be careful that any stones are not to small that could accidentally get swallowed or so big that all their food falls away out of reach. A course washed river sand will probably suit them best.

They tend to have a relatively short life span, hardly surprising considering the extreme conditions in which they live, so it is advisable to breed them regularly and keep a selection of offspring to continue your own stocks. Breeding wise the male will need a suitable hollow, PVC pipe works well for them, he will set up home and display in front of it to coax the females into breed and lay their eggs. The male will then stay on egg duty and fan the eggs, he will also get other females to lay their eggs in his nest site and raise those as well.

The only place that I have come across selling desert gobies online has them $22.69 and on special for as low as $16.50. The only place I have seen Finke River Gobies for sale has them at $20 each and some of the proceeds goes back to the land owners where the fish where originally collected from.

[OzShrimp]

Very interesting thanks for taking the time :) I would love to have some but only got 1 tank due to location and dont really wanna give shrimp up for them lol.

They sound alot like a bristlenose :P

[Baccus]

No worries, they are a great fish and if I down size on any of my other species of fish (and have another shrimpless tank) I am even debating getting some or trying to get some peacock gobies, they are real stunners and by all accounts quite good in community tanks.

[redeye]

Great pics of your gobies Baccus ummm why do they always have that surprised look on their face....like someone pinched me on the bum look. I would love to take pics of my two but they hide under a rock and only poke their heads out when food drops by. Mine don't display any colorful markings, probably females. They camouflage so well like the sand, very hard to see them.

[Baccus]

Maybe somebody did pinch them ;), or a snail got a little to friendly LOL.

Actually I think its just their natural look, the only other look I have seen about them is feed me NOW please and the actual act of having food in their mouth.

[OzShrimp]

Do you have to have ex amount of them in a tank like are they are a communal fish or do they become stressed with only one? I think a whole tank full would be cool .

How much doe the conditions required differentiate between the different species, do they cross breed ?

[Baccus]

I have read some where that 6 in a 30cm tank will be fine together, so they are fairly social, I guess it would be just the males that may get antsy if another male sets up home near his existing hollow.

Of the top of my head I think the care conditions are very similar for the Desert and Finke River Gobies, they are very closely related so cross breeding would be a very possible danger. And with them being endangered in the wild, I think its better to keep pure blood lines, much like Gouldian Finches, which now have many mutations and its almost impossible to find true wild type gouldians.

[Baccus]

Breaking news, I am pretty sure that my desert gobies spawned. The only clue that I had was two of my subadult endler females each had a large white egg stuck on their top lip. And the only other thing in the tank that lays eggs is snails and the white eggs most certainly where not snail eggs. I am really hoping that the endlers only found some stray non-fertilised eggs, and that the rest of the clutch is doing well in the hollow that the male has chosen as his home.

[Squiggle]

WAHOO!! That's possibly awesome news! Fingers crossed you get some fry soon. :encouragement:

[Baccus]

Fingers crossed, the females are also looking much slimmer and the male is almost always hidden away some where.

Anyway here is a pic, I couldn't resist taking this morning of one of the desert gobies.

[Garnelchen]

Oh, my fingers are crossed for you too!

That's a very cute picture. Desert Gobies are the "grumpy cats" of the fish world. :rofl: