golden head goby
 

I have a 77 gallon tank which has been setup for almost two years now. Really Thick sand bed, Tons of live Rock. A couple weeks ago I bought a golden head goby from the store he looked well fed. Anyways he seems to be getting thinner but is constantly sifting sand and the tank is well fed with a good variety of frozen foods any advice???

Is he eating any of the food your are putting in? What kind of food are you feeding?

mainly frozen brine shrimp and plankton a little bit of of mysis (running low gotta restock). I cant tell if hes eating it or not whenever I pour food in the tank he hides though I have seen him nibble a couple pieces a couple times.

I have the same fish with the same prob so I'm going to tag on

Those are usually called Golden Head Sleepers. They usually do better in pairs. They feed by sifting sand constantly and eating worms and things found in the sand. There is usually not enough to find in the sand, so they often waste away from lack of food. Even if they stay alive and grow they still seem to die sooner or later. :sad:

Is he being bothered by any other fish in the tank? Have you tried adding Garlic to his food to try to get him to eat more? I feed mine maybe twice a week, but he mostly gets his food from sifting. What kind of substrate do you have?

the substrate is fine sand. He occasionally has a run in with the other fish from time to time but nothing out of the ordinary and he starts trouble just as much as he gets it so I dont think he's being harrased. Hmm garlic I've heard of people feeding fish garlic but not quite sure what the deal is. Do you use normal house hold garlic or some kind of extract??? Thanks alot for the feed back guys. Also those of you that have gobies what are you feeding them??

You can use household garlic, but a pain to deal with, or you can buy garlic from usually any fish store, add acouple drops, helps to stimulate feeding. I feed my sleeper goby, flakes, brike, mysis, bio plankton. but mostly he eats what ever he gets out of the sand

would this scenario also apply to a yellow watchman goby?

Get mysis, target feed the fish with a turkey baster. This is a requisite for any sleeper/maiden goby, in my mind (gobies that live on the sandbed and burrow). I can't speak for watchman gobies.