Engineer Gobies & The Result Of Neglect
Overlapping with the week that my seahose Mr Ed passed on from GBD, I had a shipment of imported fish due to arrive from Wonderfish, an online business that is now closed down. I had on order 2 pairs of juvenile Engineer gobies - they make a peaceful, hardy and elegant alternative to eels. I had prepared for their arrival by removing the crushed shell substrate from the tank and replacing it with sand, as well as adding a pipe network under the sand to provide them with burrows, which they ignored completely :p
Here they are with their brothers and sisters during their time at Wonderfish:
The first pic shows how they resemble a poisonous catfish - this keeps them from being consumed by predators.
And this photo shows the mottled adult pattern beginning to form. I got them soon after this.
On arrival, they paced the tank for 2 days and were quite unsettled. They were still in a semi pelagic stage so it was not surprising that they didn't take to burrows straight away. It was at this point that one of them jumped from the tank during the night and I was left with 3. This was a huge blow, as Wonderfish had carefully selected the juveniles that had paired up for me and I had hoped that a few years down the track I might have a spawning event from them. Put screens over your tanks!! It is worth going to the trouble.
The remaining pair took up residence on one side of the tank, and the single Engineer Goby on the other. For quite some time this seemed ammicable, however once the pair reached full maturity and started sparring with one another, the single engineer goby suddenly disappeared. I had seen signs of aggression leading up to this, locking mouths and tumbling slowly together, but as it only occurred when the single engineer entered the pairs burrow and they got along well outside of that I didn't take any action. It's amazing how a 1 foot long fish can simply disappear overnight leaving no trace. Clean up crew can be incredibly efficient.
I feel quite confident in saying that the two pairs would have coexisted quite peacefully had not one been lost and stacked the odds against the lone fish.
I have few pictures of them, but going backwards a little, here they are half grown:
Engineer gobies are shy fish - mostly you would not know they were in the tank except for a little face looking out at you from beneath the rocks and occasionally venturing out - giving you a glimpse of their beautiful rippling fins and long bodies. They have a voracious appetite, and each fish will happily take an entire cube of frozen mysis each per day in one bite.
They also made a snack out of a pair of yellow gobies I had and will take the occasional small invertebrate if they feel a bit peckish.
Here they are with their brothers and sisters during their time at Wonderfish:
The first pic shows how they resemble a poisonous catfish - this keeps them from being consumed by predators.
And this photo shows the mottled adult pattern beginning to form. I got them soon after this.
On arrival, they paced the tank for 2 days and were quite unsettled. They were still in a semi pelagic stage so it was not surprising that they didn't take to burrows straight away. It was at this point that one of them jumped from the tank during the night and I was left with 3. This was a huge blow, as Wonderfish had carefully selected the juveniles that had paired up for me and I had hoped that a few years down the track I might have a spawning event from them. Put screens over your tanks!! It is worth going to the trouble.
The remaining pair took up residence on one side of the tank, and the single Engineer Goby on the other. For quite some time this seemed ammicable, however once the pair reached full maturity and started sparring with one another, the single engineer goby suddenly disappeared. I had seen signs of aggression leading up to this, locking mouths and tumbling slowly together, but as it only occurred when the single engineer entered the pairs burrow and they got along well outside of that I didn't take any action. It's amazing how a 1 foot long fish can simply disappear overnight leaving no trace. Clean up crew can be incredibly efficient.
I feel quite confident in saying that the two pairs would have coexisted quite peacefully had not one been lost and stacked the odds against the lone fish.
I have few pictures of them, but going backwards a little, here they are half grown:
Engineer gobies are shy fish - mostly you would not know they were in the tank except for a little face looking out at you from beneath the rocks and occasionally venturing out - giving you a glimpse of their beautiful rippling fins and long bodies. They have a voracious appetite, and each fish will happily take an entire cube of frozen mysis each per day in one bite.
They also made a snack out of a pair of yellow gobies I had and will take the occasional small invertebrate if they feel a bit peckish.
