New Yellow Watchman Goby not eating...

[TanksNStuff]

I bought a yellow watchman goby about a week ago and placed him in my QT tank. The tank is a 10 gallon bare bottom with a couple pieces of PVC pipe and a few small pieces of uncured rock. I have an aquaclear 500 powerfilter running with no media (I basically use it just for circulation). The only thing in the filter is a polyester filter pad. Other than that, all I have in the QT is a heater set at 79 degrees. The water is free of any ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and the mix is around 1.020 sg. I've kept it low hoping to help kill off any parasites that may have been on the goby.

Anyway, he was eating some flakes the day I bought him and had slowly began eating less and less over the next couple days. Since then, I haven't seen him eating anything I have fed him in the past 2 days. I think he may have nibbled on one flake, but other than that nothing.

I've tried to feed him frozen mysis, 3 different brands of flake foods, and even tried black worms last night. I thought for sure he would eat the mysis and/or black worms, but he pretty much swam right by them and went to hide. When I feed him, I usually turn off the power filter during feeding because otherwise it will suck up any food before he got a chance to eat it. I leave it off for at least 15 minutes, and watch him for a few minutes right after feeding. He doesn't eat anything while I watch, and when I check back later, it looks like the same amount of food floating around.

Is this normal behavior for a watchman goby? All my other QT'd fish have had no problems with eating. Looking for any advice to keep this guy alive.

 

[r2reyzer]

I have two yellow wm gobies (in two separate tanks). I had a similar issue with one of them. They are used to "pouncing" on their food from a hiding space. Try putting a piece of live rock in your QT so it can hide, then try live brine shrimp. That's what I had to do for one of mine.

 

[adesimone1]

Mine is over 6 inches he eats everything. Try giving him an algae sheet. They like large pieces of food. I give him large mysis

 

[r2reyzer]

Sorry, just rereading your post. It looks like you already have rock in your tank. You mentioned that it's "uncured" and it's been in there for a week? When you say the water is free of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, when was the last time you checked your parameters? Uncured rock will make these cycle.

 

[TanksNStuff]

First off, thanks for the replies so far. I'll try the algae sheets and see if that works. If not, I'll try live brine... although I would think the black worms would be as tempting as those, but you never know.

To answer your questions r2r:

I just put the 3 small pieces of rock in there a couple days ago. They were pieces I had sitting dry in my garage that were powerwashed clean about 2 months ago and just sitting since. I doubt there is anything still living on them that would affect the water parameters. I checked the parameters yesterday and they were fine (API test kit) Besides that, he stopped eating before I put those in anyway. I thought he might prefer hiding under the rocks than in the pvc pieces and I was correct.

I'll keep everyone posted on his status.

 

[TanksNStuff]

GOOD NEWS!!!

Today, Herman (yellow watchman goby) gobbled up a bunch of black worms! I left all the rock pieces in the QT tank today during feeding and dropped the worms in one at a time. He snuck out and "pounced" on them when they got close to the bottom. I guess he just needed to "hunt" for his food. Thanks for the tip r2r!

Anyway, I'm happy now. I think he ate about 15 of them. ;D

 

[r2reyzer]

Glad to hear he's eating well Tanks.

Good luck with "Herman".

 

[JRWOHLER]

Glad to hear it.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks everyone!