Valenciennea
The Fish Of Which Dreams (or Nightmares) Are Made
Excerpt: Placing a Sand Sifting Goby into your home aquarium can be a mixed "bag of worms." Depending on the aquarists' philosophy, these gobies are either a gift from the heavens, or a curse from the devil himself. The philosophy that I am referring to is the regarding sandbeds. This is rather simple, actually: If you want an active, "live" sandbed, you
do not want a Valenciennea. They will actively prey upon any life form that aquarists would consider beneficial to a healthy live sand bed. Are you curious to what extent they will consume sandbed life? Take this into consideration: In the brutal, eat or be eaten world of reefs, these fish venture over one meter from the security of their den into the vast open world of danger to find food. They would not vacate their burrow by such a distance unless absolutely necessary. Essentially, they prey upon a square meter's worth of sand for food, or in aquarium terms, slightly larger than a sandbed of 5' x 2'. However, they do not have only one burrow. Numerous burrows are constructed over defended territories, sometimes ranging in scope of up to 5000 square feet (Michael,
Coral Realm).
For those hobbyists that are not concerned with an active sandbed, you are still not in the clear, yet. These sand sifters will do an excellent job of overturning your sand and generally keeping it clean. However, you must realize that they are also indiscriminate dumpsters. That is, they have no worries over which coral they expel the sand onto - and yes, they will mock you and bury all of your corals…daily.
So you don't want a live sandbed, and you don't keep corals? Great, keep reading.
Valenciennea are fantastic aquarium fish! That is, they are highly disease resistant and are rather easily fed most any prepared aquarium foods, though it should be geared towards the diet of a carnivore, to supplement their endless excavation for live food. However, there is one stipulation: these gobies build extensive burrows to the point of not being possible in most home aquariums. One researcher required over 1.5 gallons of poly resin to cast one burrow of a
V. strigata, the largest burrow of all recorded
Valenciennea species. Luckily for hobbyists these fish are so incredibly hardy that they generally do not stress about the lack of an enormous burrow, provided they still have somewhere to hide. If your sandbed will not allow for the fish to construct a burrow of its own, provide one for it either by creative aquascaping, or by physically creating one with any of the several recipes for faux DIY live rock. Please note they prefer a front and back door to their burrow.
What discussion of fish would be complete without talking about aquarium size? You may have noted earlier that these gobies can defend an area approaching 5000 square feet (
V. longipinnis), although most species defend a much smaller area. Obviously we cannot recreate this in the typical home aquarium. Thankfully, these fish are not active swimmers, only active
feeders. Likewise, they are not terribly aggressive in aquariums and generally get along well with most tank mates. Exceptions to this would include any open water, active swimming fish. When an open water swimmer is forced to constantly cruise past the gobies, it will force them to remain closer to their burrow, and not allow them to display their natural feeding habits.
