What is up with my gobies and other suicidal fish?!?!

[J-Ram]

O.K. I'm just throwing this out there since I'm starting to take this personally now. First it was my littel orange spotted goby, then months later my 6 line wrasse jumped out of the tank (mind you, about 2/3rds of it was covered in galss). After the Wrasse jumped I went immediately to Home depot, picked up some ~1" square lighting "egg-crate", cut it to fit exactly on my tank, refugium, etc. and everything seemed fine. I recently got a diamond goby, who was doing some good sand cleaning work and while I've heard him jump into the egg crate I figured all was going to be fine. Well I came home today after being out about 6 hours and this diamond goby is dean on the floor. Mind you, this was a 3-4" goby, decent size and he somehow not only jumped through the grate, but liekly had to wiggle to get through to commit suicide.

O.k. so other than to vent (thanks for listening) about the emotional and $$ loss of these great fish/inhabitants of my tank I have these questions:

1. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing where a goby will all but craw to get through a cover?

2. What the heck is in my tank that is making these guys go nuts? I literally have a black clownfish, some corals, snails and a sally lightfoot crab. Everyone is pretty mellow. Could it be aipstasia "surprising" them?

3. What can I get for the lid that will still let light through so I'm not blocking my t-5s/hood but that will not let fish through (or should I only buy fat fish)?

4. What other fish might clean sand, be reef safe and less of an issue in this regard. The sad part is I love gobies but now that I'm $100+ down ebtween the gobies and the wrasse, I'm reluctant to get anything that isn't coral.


Thanks for the shoudler to cry on and any advice you can provide. How did you all get through your first fish losses?

J-Ram

 

[ming]

1. Eggcrates aren't the smallest thing, its not hard for most gobies to be able to go through when the jump at high velocities with incredible aiming.
2. its their natural instinctive when they get scared to jump. Most of the time its because they're scared from being in a new environment, but they can fight amongst each other too. I would advise on getting something to prevent them from jumping ship instead of hope they don't jump at all. They are known jumpers if you had them for a week, or a year
3. If blocking light is a major concern, get a full canopy, otherwise you can contact KathyC and shes known to make a mesh cover to prevent jumpers. I have a canopy for my tanks and no fish has ever been able to jump out of that.
4. clean sand? if anything, they're eating the microfauna in the sand, not cleaning it of sh*t

 

[h20 freak]

I agree with ming, they will just jump enough times that they will eventually get through the eggcrate, in the wild they dart upwards when startled but on a reef they just end up a few feet higher, not on a carpet like in our tanks.

 

[Wes]

4. clean sand? if anything, they're eating the microfauna in the sand, not cleaning it of sh*t

actually they do a damn good job at cleaning the sand. keeping it stirred up so the crap can get pulled out of the water column.

unfortunately all of the sand sifting gobies are known jumpers so you are going to have to come up w/ a better way to keep them in the tank if you want to keep them.

 

[CAPTAIN STABBIN]

Medicine and therapy for your fish! LOL

 

[Chapz]

Sorry to hear that. I actually had a goby for about 3 months that decided to jump out since i left the canopy open. Sucks but it happens.

 

[J-Ram]

Thanks for the support

I've decided to focus on getting my corals and refugium dialed in and winning the war with my aipstasia (the nuibranchs ship tomorrow but it looks like the shrimp are doing a pretty good job....I never see them but the amount of aipstasia seems to be diminishing). I still really can't believe this goby got out like that since the tolerances are so tight for a fish of its size.

Would a pair be les likely to be "startled" like this and thus less likely to exhibit jumping behavior? My istinct is maybe but ot likely enought to make a difference....anyone have any first hand experience with this? New Thread maybe?

 

[ming]

Would a pair be les likely to be "startled" like this and thus less likely to exhibit jumping behavior? My istinct is maybe but ot likely enought to make a difference....anyone have any first hand experience with this? New Thread maybe?

You have to understand that they jump out of the water naturally in the ocean and will continue to do it in your tank no matter what the conditions are. In their eyes, they will land back in the water as they always have in the ocean.
I have 5 jawfishes in one of my tank and they steal each others hole all the time. Eventually one of them is homeless from getting evicted and will easily take a leap of faith if scared.