Ever had a Dragon Goby?

[Industrial]

I have two of them currently. My larger one is a few months and survived a complete cycle. Although it's not recommended, these fish can be very hardy. If you put them in sand, they will dig. They will kill your filters if they are in a shallow tank with sand. I get best results feeding them brine shrimp. The newer goby hides more and filter feeds. The older goby has gotten used to sifting through the sand for food. My older one is also completely indifferent to light vs dark. The younger one seems to be more active at night. I feed mine shrimp pellets, bloodworms, glassworms and mosquito larvae mostly. Occasionally I will also throw in some tetracolor granules (only the older one eats these, but he stops after he realizes that they aren't real food). I will occasionally break up an algae wafer and throw that in too. When I was trying to fix a nitrite problem in my tank, I cut down on feeding and they started to eat some of the algae off of the glass. It sure looked akward.

Only warnings are, make sure you keep one, or keep them together. If you put one that was solitary for a while with others he/she will get very territorial. My oldest one used to kind of open his mouth like a POed lizard and show off his teeth when others got too close. Then he started biting them. Now he is used to them though.

Also, make sure if you put them in gravel that you feed them live brine shrimp weekly. It's hard for them to pick out food from between gravel. When mine was in gravel he used to filter feed the brine shrimp and he would get very little of whatever sinking foods went into the tank. In sand they can just scoop in sand and food and the sand will come out of their gills.

Personally, I love my dragon gobys. They can have a lot of character. I find mine more active when alone than together. My oldest one is about 8" and my younger one is 6".

 

[Saterus]

What sorts of mid to upper level fish would play nice in brackish water?

I chose bumblebee gobies. They are typically bouncing around right in the center of the tank, especially as feeding time approaches! When the lights come on they are scattered everywhere but they spend most of their time in the middle or playing near the top in the current from the filter.
I was going to include indian glassfish but my LFS had issues finding them and I decided not to add any more fish after the violet goby to avoid any potential disease. Then there's a dwarf gourami that spends most of his time near the surface or patrolling the whole tank. I had considered mollies but he adds a good flash of color and I don't want anything that would need an upgrade too soon. If I were to add anything it would probably be mollies or chromides, I've almost gotten them several times but I no longer have a brackish QT available.
Hm, I do have some healthy mollies in a marine tank that could maybe be moved..

 

[Pufferpunk]

Gouramis are not BW fish.

 

[Saterus]

I realize that. He was a gift from my husband and was too big and territorial to go in the 10g which was my only other tank at the time. The salt in the brackish was almost nothing at the time because the violet goby hadn't arrived yet and I rightly assumed he'd come from freshwater, so it was pretty much a freshwater tank the first few months the gourami was in there and the salt was upped very slowly.
Then I got sick and ended up in the ER, then recovering and by the time I got thinking about taking him back to the store he had settled in, the salt had been raised, and he was doing great. I asked a few people at the time and they said if he's doing great it might be a good idea to just leave him be. Two years later, he's big, bright, active, and seems to enjoy having most of the tank to himself.

More on topic, am I the only one whose dragon is pretty active? He renovates the sand every day, occasionally buries himself, perches on the glass, leaves his cave to renovate all the other caves and come back, digs under the java moss, patrols all the corners, etc. He's more active at night and sits out in the open a lot longer but he's still busy during the day.
Maybe I just have good timing and catch him in the few moments he does anything all day

 

[sericinda]

I have two...they were in my 55 gallon brackish grow-out tank with some scats, and are now in my 120 gallon freshwater (lightly salted) tank. The silver scat was picking on them to death. If they were in hiding, they were fine, but both liked to come out and be active. The moment they came out of hiding, the silver scat would obsessively chase them and bite them both. They are pretty torn up right now.

I'm going to set up the large tank I had waiting for the scats to grow up a bit and move them to that and make the 55 a species-only tank for these gobies for now. Am a bit annoyed at this silver scat...the other scats and the figure eight puffers ignore them completely, not sure what his issue is! The goby is quite large and the scat just a juvie yet, but the goby is a big pussycat and doesn't defend himself at all.

Very cool fish, I really like them and hope they do alright in the freshwater tank until I can get these other tanks set-up and the fish moved so they can go back to their own tank.....sucks though because I wasn't planning on keeping ANY of these fish in the 55 for long and I obviously can't keep them all together. Fish store doesn't take returns and I don't know anyone else in my area that has a large enough tank to rehome a scat to. Besides, I really like the scat too, other than his attitude problem. He doesn't bother any of the other fish in the tank....he's only obsessed with the gobies.

 

[taelee]

I had one. It's a good addition with many others.