Butterfly Goby (aka Dusky Panther Goby)

[Conner]

(Neovespicula depressifrons)

Does anyone have any experience with these guys? I just picked one up the other day. He's currently in a 10g fw tank, but I'm hoping to be able to set him up in a 20-30g brackish tank sometime in the next couple of months. Any info would be nice. He's currently eating frozen brineshrimp and bloodworms, and live blackworms.

 

[Goanna]

Well to start off they are actually a Wasp fish, not a goby, despite the name.

I just got two the other day. They are tiny, smaller then a quarter, but really cool looking non the less.

They are very sensitive to water conditions, so they need to be acclimated very slowly. I dripped them for about an hour.

They can be picky eaters. They often prefer live foods but if you get one that doesn't want to eat just keep trying different things until you get a feeding response. Luckily both of mine took to live black worms right away.

Your's is already setup and eating so it's not a concern for you but I figured I would mention it anyway for future reference.

They are a mid range brackish fish, SG of 1.008 to like 1.0012 is more then enough. The guy I got them from basically said one cup of marine salt to 20 gallons (which works out to about 1.008 according to my hydrometer).

Anyway, that's about all I could find on them. I have them in a 10 gallon right now since they are so small but I will move them to my 65 gallon mangrove tank eventually when they are big enough to not get eaten by the archers (which woudl in turn kill the archers since they are venomous) .

 

[Conner]

Yah, I just called it by goby because that's what most people will know it as. I seem to be collecting venomous fish lately - this guy, stingrays, even all my little cory's are venomous.

I drip acclimate as well, usually takes about 2-3 hours. I place my fish in a 2.5g tank I keep for acclimating, and slowly fill it up 2-3 times using a steady, but fairly slow, drip.

Mine is already eating well, so I'm not worried about that. He was getting bullied a little by a yoyo loach the first day, but they seem to be doing fine now. The loach will be moving to another tank soon anyways - he's just on snail patrol