anyone else have problems keeping yellow clown gobies?

[salt creepette]

tonight my third attempt at keeping yellow clown gobies has failed. my first one (Tiny, RIP Sept '03) got sucked into the little hole where the cpr bak pak skimmer takes in water. the second wouldnt eat and wasted away (Teeny, RIP Nov '03). the third one, which I got a month ago (Tiny Two RIP Sept.6, 2004)and has been doing GREAT, eating, fat, happy, etc. stupidly put his head in this weird bivalve clam thing that I have in my tank (I just discovered it; I thought it was live rock that my green frilly mushrooms were attatched to, but apparently its some kind of clam or oyster or something) and I guess the clam closed on his head. so I come home to see my favorite little adorable fish's head in a vise, lifeless body flapping in the current.

Has anyone else had such dismal luck trying to keep this fish alive in their tanks? are they just accident prone, or what? WHY CANT I KEEP ONE ALIVE?!? (shakes fists at sky)

[ObsessiveProgression]

I dunno.... if I was a clown goby, I dont think I would indescriminately poke my head into strange dark crevasses......

Im sorry your fish died. If I were you, I would decide which I love more... the goby or the clam. Cuz if you got another one and it happened again, you would feel even worse than you do now.

You were perfectly happy with your tank before you ever knew the clam was there.... so ditch the clam. Its not worth it.

[salt creepette]

[salt creepette]

what do i do about all those lovely green frilly mushrooms?

[ObsessiveProgression]

Ummm.... this may sound insanely cruel, but if it would be a huge project to move everything around and displace all the mushrooms....... then kill the clam.

Inject it with lemon juice. That will kill it. Then clean out as much of its flesh as you can, and turn up your skimmer for a couple weeks to handle anything else that might decay.

Thats what I would do, but then again Im a heartless jerk.

[ObsessiveProgression]

To this reef tank, you are GOD. You decides who lives and who dies, and you are the one that has to make the tough decisions.

This is one of those times.

[OodleyBoodely]

I've had bad luck with them, too. My first didn't do well from the start and I think it ended up inside my bta-the bta was very small so the goby must have offered itself up as a sacrifice. My second was a sweet fish that did very well for a few months-I found him dead with no obvious causes one day. I now have two green/red clowns that are doing great. They are not as outgoing as the yellows, however, nor are they as noticable since thier colors blend into the rockwork so well. I miss the little yellow goby, he was a real character and always out front and center.


Sorry about your loss. I think they may be a little accident prone.

[Hi-Rise Reefer]

I always have a pair of these in my tanks, my last pair lived for about 3 years..Then they both went poof within a month to an unknown demise. They are pretty resilient and smart little guys. I have a snowflake, two anemones with patrolling clowns, and an arrow crab and they do fine, they have so many hidey holes and places only they can get to in a micro second thay they fear nothing and are always front center in the tank. They are alot of fish for such a small bio-load!

[JennM]

Originally Posted by ObsessiveProgression

Ummm.... this may sound insanely cruel, but if it would be a huge project to move everything around and displace all the mushrooms....... then kill the clam.

Inject it with lemon juice. That will kill it. Then clean out as much of its flesh as you can, and turn up your skimmer for a couple weeks to handle anything else that might decay.

Thats what I would do, but then again Im a heartless jerk.

Yeah that is insanely cruel. If something doesn't get along, trade it in or give it away.

If one felt really compelled to kill something, just remove it from the tank first...

::::shakes head:::::

Jenn

[Melissa]

You could always put the rock with the clam and shrooms in your refugium. Then maybe you can get some of the shrooms to move onto another rock to put back in your main display. After that, trade in the clam rock to the LFS or local reefing friend with larger fish.

I agree with Jenn to a certain extent. I am guilty of wanting to get rid of some zoanthids and I have been unable to effectively peel them off the rock without decimating them. This one particular variety I have spreads so quickly and is overtaking an acro. If I could get them off the rock without killing them, I would. It's just not working that way. I kill aiptasia, too. Some things are pests and some are not. I wouldn't give away flatworms just so I didn't have to kill them.

Melissa

[yardboy]

"Nature red, in tooth and claw"!

I've gotten pretty wanton over Xenia. For the longest time, I'd carefully snip and attach them to rocks and trade to lfs, but I finally saturated the market. Dismays me how much I paid for my first frag of the stuff. I also have some star polyps that got onto my very first coral. It recedes from them, and if I didn't get brutal with the bamboo skewer, they'd kill it. I actually had them completely cover and kill a digitata I had, so I know what they can do. Somehw they have a crevice that a few polyps hide in, and so when I see their little fluorescent polyps starting to creep out, I go after them with the business end of that skewer. (I wait until all the pacifists are asleep to do the dirty deed)