Gobies And Sps's

[AntsReef]

Hi all,
About 2 weeks ago I bought a very small yellow goby and a very small clown green goby. Since then my little yellow goby has taken up residence in one of my SPS's. It looks great but my query is this:
Until the goby "moved in" the Acro was covered in a vast amount of fairly long polyps. Since then the polyps have withdrawn and the acros tips have turned bright purple and it is growing strongly. Is the goby detrimental to the Acro. The Acro BTW is as big as a mans hand.
cheers,
Anthony

[Mrs Ziggy CGA]

Hi Athony,
Assuming your yellow goby is one of these?
yellow goby (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=1441)

In the wild these gobies lay their eggs within the branches of Acropora, they peel back the flesh at the tips. Obviously in the wild this is not a problem but in a closed system........ :( I'm not sure if you would experience this given that you have a single specimen.
I believe Gary Thomas and Tuan had major problems with this. If I were you I would search for posts by both of these members.

HTH

Sue

[Marc Foord]

i don't think elliot had too many good words to say about the ones he had either..... :lol:

[Mrs Ziggy CGA]

i don't think elliot had too many good words to say about the ones he had either..... :lol: Yep, forgot about Elliot ;) :lol:

[julesandsand]

I knew someone who had a pair of Okinawa gobies in his tank and they made a bit of a mess of his acros.

Great little fish though :D

[roburns]

I had a pair of okinawa's for a few years, they lived and spawned in my Acros. They will remove the tissue from a small area on the underside of an acro branch and lay their eggs. They tend to use the same patch of acro branch for subsequent egg clutches so don't really cause that much damage. They are facinating to watch and as the Acro tips are not damaged the colony grows away from the damage that they have caused.

Rob

[Major Stare]

Ant......... give me your Aco's and your problems will be solved ;) ;) :D

[pavlo]

I had a pair for a year or so, they spawned regularly and caused only minor damage to the corals. I lost one over a year ago but the remaining one is still doing fine. A fascinating little fish that is well worth the sacrifice of a bit of acro flesh.

[AntsReef]

Cheers guys,very interesting and informative but no flesh is receding it's merely that where once the acro put out loads of fuzzy polyps it now doesn't put any out. Also several chromis sleep in this acro at night but they did before with no adverse effect.
regards,
Anthony

[Valley Boy]

Personally, i would not have them in my tank after seing the damage they caused to GT;s acro's. He had about half a dozen!------ :wacko:

[tuan]

Originally posted by pavlo@Sep 27 2005, 22:08
I had a pair for a year or so, they spawned regularly and caused only minor damage to the corals. I lost one over a year ago but the remaining one is still doing fine. A fascinating little fish that is well worth the sacrifice of a bit of acro flesh.
I used to think the same too... had a pair that spawned and lived happily in the acros. One day, after a bit of a disaster when I lost quite a few acros, the remaining acros got totally stripped by the gobies as the damage is now concentrated instead of spread out.

Like all things.. it'll be fine for a while and worth a little risk, then something disasterous struck and all your 'little risks' compound up and catch up with you in one go! ;)