New acquisition
 

Picked this little guy up yesterday. It is a Rainford Goby, or Rainford's Goby. My search for information came up with the fact that it is a hair algea eater. I have a bit of brown algae on the bottom. We'll see how it does with that. :biggrin:

http://members.shaw.ca/rcipema/rainfordone.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/rcipema/rainfordtwo.jpg

Cool little fish - hope it does well with you.

very nice

hows that 6 line and yellow goby doing?

Rainfrods gobies don't eat hair algae. They eat the inverts that live on and eat the algae.

Sorry. they require a tank of similar dimensions and age as a dragonette

Agreed, reefer_11. The hover gobies (what a cheesy name) are sand sifters, who eat microcrustaceans. I don't think they would eat cyano, except if they happened to get a mouthful when sifting, as my Valenccia puellaris sometimes does. They require a fairly large tank to do well. I believe someone (Sam perhaps) out on the coast has a cousin to Rainford's Goby, a Hector's goby, and that individual can probably comment further.

That of course is opinion. Some of the sources of my info feel like you do. That being that they eat the animal life in the algae beds. Others feel they eat the algae. There is some feeling that they do better in a well established tank. One of the sources states a 20 gallon tank will be fine. They all state the goby is a jumper, and a covered tank is recommended. I have introduced the fish into a well established 50 gallon tank, and I will keep you up tp date as to its progress, or lack of same. :rolleyes:

The six line and goby are doing fine Jesse. There is a problem with the goby and my M. digitata. That is being worked on as we speak. :biggrin:

:neutral: I will partly take back what I said. From what I am finding out now, the diet of Amblygobius species ranges from fine algae to small crustaceans - "...filamentous algae, various crustacean groups, nematode worms..." (Fenner). Starvation remains the leading cause of death in captivity. Of course this is a problem with any fish that will not accept prepared foods. Whether yours makes a dent in your cyano (that's what it looks like to me) will be interesting to find out.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amblygobius.htm

concidering cyno is a bacteria and not a algae I would bet not.

Steve

Bob I've got one too, beautiful fish, some folks seem to call the Hectors gobies too, although others say the Hectors has different colouring. It's a reasonably active fish, not real shy but not a go getter.

Doug

The Hector's goby is a different species, Amblygobius hectori versus Amblygobius rainfordi. I was looking for an A. hectori for a while but never found one, which is why I bought my V. puellaris.

No it is not Cyanobacter. It is a leftover from those glass beads. There stlill appear to be some left over. The algae always goes away at night. (but the who worries about algae when you can't see it) I am not terrribly concerned about the algae. I thought I would give the little guy a shot because he had already been at the LFS for a week, and his future was dim to say the least. At least he has a chance at my place. :rolleyes:

I...

<broken record>

..naaaahhhh...

Mitch :wink:

Good luck with him, Bob. It seem like reliable info is sketchy at best on some fish, eh?

He looked a little skinny yesterday, but appears to have improved somewhat. I would think he has a better chance here than where he was. I will give it a shot anyway. The other fish don't bother with him, so he may have a chance. :rolleyes:

Oh, I never realized you took them out or that you had a problem with them.. Bob you never cease to surprise me, got rid of the cheep sand bed, got a skimmer, bought MH lighting.... your getting modren :mrgreen:

Steve

Steve, you think he'll start doing water changes one day?

Doug :lol:

I said Iwould keep you updated on the little guy. So far after one week+ he is doing very well. He seems to be getting enough to eat. He was involved in some construction work for a while, but has lost interest in that project. He takes little bites of brown algae covered gravel, and it comes out of his gills all cleaned up. :biggrin: :mrgreen:

Very cool Bob, I'm really pleased with mine as well.

Doug

I tried to keep a Rainford's Goby on two seperate ocassions several years ago. They were the only fish I ever owned that I couldn't keep alive.

They have incredibly fast metabolisms, and as you're already well aware they like to jump. Historically the problem with them has been that while they do have fast metabolisms they also often arrive with internal parasites. Couple that with their high metabolic rates and they often starve. This problem is compounded if the fish was collected by poor suppliers and then sold to equally poor LFSs.

On both occasions mine fattened up quickly once they had been in my tank for a week or so. However I never witnessed them eat prepared foods. After about 3 months they appeared to be maintaining a very good body weight, but then slowly deteriorated and I was never able to keep them alive for more than 6 months or so.

My experience may have been tainted by the fact that I purchased both of mine from a pathetic LFS in an attempt to save them. They're one of my favorite fishes - they're very unique and have great personalities. I hope you have better luck than I did.

A couple of weeks have passed since I acquired the little guy. For the past few days I noticed that he grabbed things when I was feeding the tank, but spit them out right away. Today I saw that he was actually eating the stuff that he grabbed out of the water column. Perhaps there is hope that he will survive. :mrgreen:

Good to hear Bob, mines still fine as well. Thinking a few more would be nice in the 155 when it's up and running.

Doug

Well I am unhappy to report that the little guy is probably history. Last night he was laying on the bottom breathing rapidly. Today I have not seen hide or hair of him. There was never any indication of his oncoming demise. He was still nice and fat, and sifting gravel at a goodly rate. :sad:

Bummerino. A moment of silence for Mr. Dirigible.

I'm not going to say what the proper diet of the Rainford goby is, but I have one in my tank and it is quite happy running around eating any of the "bugs" it encouters on the glass, rocks, coral ect. He is also an active participant during feedings of flake, brine and mysis shrimp. In short, I think he'll eat just about anything that will fit down his throat. That may be just my fish, I'd hate to speak for an entire species. :smile:

Damn Bob that's a crying shame, it may have just been old age catching up with it. Sorry Bob

Doug

Sorry to hear that it didn't make it Bob. I'm sorry I didn't finish reading the thread before I posted.