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SO, my boyfriend bought me a beautiful purple spotted goby which is about 2 inches long for my birthday! But he is in a 20 gallon tank alone! The only other fish i own are two figure 8 puffers and a rubber lip Placo and I know the figure 8 puffers will pick at the goby's fins....will the placo go well with the goby? WHAT kinda of fish WILL go well with my goby? Thanks so much!

I love gobies, they are some of the coolest fish in the world and I agree the puffer has to move on or the goby needs to be moved. The pleco will be fine, but you could remove it to give the goby more space. Other than that any small schooling fish, or upper water fish would be fine. I wouldn't recommend tiger barbs, but danios, rasboras, or many tetras would all be fine. Do you happen to know the scientific name?

Yes! I love my Goby, It has a very attractive personality! The scientific name is Mogurnda mogurnda. I am assuming this because the other species it could be, the southern purple spotted goby, is endangered and illegal to sell!

This would not be a good fish to put small schoolers and such with. They are fin nippers and not good community tank fish. You might get away with something fast like danios but a 20g is kinda small. I'd leave it by itself unless you move it to a slightly bigger tank like a 29g. They can reach around 6" which is a bit large for a 20g especially if you want to put other fish in there. http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/breeding/Marshall_Mmogurnda.html

The pleco does need moved though or the puffers switched with the goby. Figure 8s are agressive puffers that need brackish water. Your going to have to start adding salt soon since as they grow they move toward saltwater. Plecos don't handle salt well. http://www.pufferlist.com/puffer/brackpuff.php?puffid=13

A sleeper should have no problem handling a fig8; in fact, once the thing reaches any notable length, you'll have to watch out for theopposite.

what is a sleeper?

Sleeper [Gobies] are members of the family Eleotridae (versus Gobiidae for the true gobies), which includes the Purple-Spotted Goby.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I'll have to keep an eye out fo one! I stay up very late last night to study for one of my classes and I whitness my goby stalking about...SUCKING UP my defenseless sleeping zebra danios!!!! I was quite shocked and now I know why I never see my Goby eat the blood worms I feed him.....let us have a moment of silence for the danios....

Are you sure it's a goby?

The scientific name you gave tells me it's a purple spotted gudgeon.

They're not part of the gobidae family but are related.

Theyre grumpy old coots but I have him in with other gudgeons, and lots of rainbows, and he never fights.

He's to lazy for that.

They aren't particularly aggressive... I've kept the N.A. analogue of the mogurnda genus, dormitator sp., for some time with goldfish and loricariids---they certainly, as you've discovered, are predatory, though.

Oh, yes, quite a few Eleotrids are stealth predators with a surprising capacity to swallow prey. One of the most frightening to witness, and a close relative of your fish, is Oxyeleotris marmoratus, which is capable of reaching a whopping 65 cm in length when fully grown and is probably the largest member of the Family. When this fish decides to go looking for lunch, it's capable of swallowing an adult Dempsey whole. It's pretty handy at dismantling crayfish too.

With respect to your own fish, here is what Ye Vnerable Innes Book has to say about Mogurnda mogurnda:

A pretty Australian fish and quite lively for a Goby; in fact, too lively in one respect, for it tears the fins of other fishes. As a community fish, it is one of the world's worst, being comparable in this respect to the much better known Gambusia affinis.

The spots on the body and fins are black and dark red, while the 3 light stripes on the cheek are purple, giving the fish its popular name.

Larger fins identify the male. Eggs are despoited on the glass of the aquarium in a space free from plants, usually on the near side where the aquarist may conveniently watch them. At a tmperature of 72 degrees [Fahrenheit] they hatch in 9 days. The male fans the eggs, but he should be removed after the eggs hatch.

Our friend, the late Wm. A. Poyser, first illustrated the species as Krefftius adspersius in "Aquatic Life" in 1918. There have been subsequent importations.

Temperature range, 60-80 degrees. Food preferably carnivorous. A desirable fish if kept only among its own kind, and rather pretty.

Likely to be a problem if you're forced by circumstances to house it with other fishes, which of course you've already discovered vis-a-vis the recently eaten Danios. A fish that would have been termed a "Bad Actor" by old school Innes fans (a phrase he used himself with reference to the Cuban Cichlid Nandopsis tetracanthus, which is aggressive, an industrial-scale digger, destroys plants and generally goes around doing its best NOT to win friends and influence people ).


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

WOW, so now that I know what freakin species I own...what kind of fish can Gudgen go with? When I bought him, he was in a tank with guppies.....but it seems like he would eat those kinds of fish.....considering my sad little danios

As an aside, the term 'sleeper goy' arises from their sedentary, ambush predator habits. The classic example is a fish called Dormitator maculatus - the generic name Dormitator translates directly from the Latin as "sleeper". While a few of these fishes are fresh water, quite a few others (and Dormitator maculatus is an example) are brackish fishes. Mind you, I wouldn't consider Dormitator maculatus to be anything other than a specialist fish for someone who knows what they are doing, because apart from being a brackish fish, it's big - as in 70 cm long!

They are likely to be compatible only with fast moving, active fishes that are larger than themselves. In the case of your Mogurnda mogurnda, chances are that the larger Rainbow Fishes would make suitable companions - fishes that are 4 inches or more long when fully grown - and other suitable bottom dwellers that could share their home include fishes such as the Raphael Cat and other heavily armoured Doradids. I certainly would not risk small Corys with a Sleeper Goby as it might try to eat them.

Incidentally, Fishbase has Mogurnda mogurnda listed as a 17.5 cm fish. So it's a 7 inch stealth predator when fully grown. Which means my original suggestion of large Rainbow Fishes as companions is also down the tubes because it'll be big enough to eat those too as an adult. It's beginning to look as though you've taken on a fish that will, in time, only be compatible with fishes the size of Tinfoil Barbs. At 7 inches, Mogurnda mogurnda will have a cavernous mouth, and will probably pose a threat even to fishes such as Severums and medium sized Dempseys. The good news being that because it's sedentary, it won't need gigantic quarters (though a 3ft tank is advisable for a full grown adult).

Moral of the story - if your boyfriend wants to buy you fish, get him to take you along so you know what you're getting.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Wow, that's amazing. I'm so sorry about your danios, but the gudgeon sounds like a really cool fish to own. Perhaps some larger, fast moving, upper water fish would be good to keep with him. Rainbows come to mind, but they get a little big for a 20 gallon. Perhaps some hatchet fish? An African Butterfly fish might work, as long as he doesn't rip apart it's fins.
Still, sounds like a very cool fish. You could get some feeder ghost shrimp to give him some live food and see the awesome hunting behaviors.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Just ruled out even large Rainbows I'm afraid Illustrae - I thought so too until I saw that this fish hits 7 inches. It's RTBS sized as an adult. Any shoaling fish that is going to live with this goby is going to be big - something like a Tinfoil Barb or a Leporinus Characoid.

The other alternative I can think of is to pop it in with some Synspilums or other relatively mild mannered but BIG Cichlids that will be too big for it to eat. Not sure what it's chances would be with the 'bad boys' such as Black Belts, but you're looking at that size of fish. Fellow bottom feeders would probably be big Synos - this Sleeper Goby looks as if it might be able to stand the heat of living with a bruiser such as Synodontis acanthomias or Synodontis schal. Alternatively, you'd have to house it with a chunky Doradid.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

ah well, I supposed having a big grumpy fish that can't be housed with any other fish isn't ALL that bad.... I do have a Rubber Lip Placo in there with him and he seems to not even know it's there....I actually think my sleeper is a girl....OH WELL, at least I know now so i don't sacrifice any poor unwilling souls to her jaws!

Actually, I think adult rainbowfish would be fine with the goby. As they get older the rainbowfish get that weird humpbacked shape, and it seems they would be quite difficult for the goby to eat.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Im not genuinely convinced that one of the aforementioned gobies could swallow a truly adult rainbowfish , except maybe the smaller species or subadult specimens. Problem is , in tank conditions most people dont manage to get rainbows to grow or mature properly, leading to most species ending up at about 4 inches of less. Rainbows are renowned for being hard to bring on to full size. Being that a goby can be nippy in regards to taking chunks out of fish, and when they do strike will often do so with lightening speed and total commitment, its hard to know precisely what they are capable of killing. Im sure the odd fish will either end up wounded or sufficiently shocked to die whether the goby manages to actually swallow it or not.

These smaller specimens could be eaten, or sufficiently damaged in an attack to be killed, im sure this is possible. But The adults of the mid sized species I keep, when fully adult normally top out at 6-7 inches, making them quite a bulky fish, something people who havent already got full grown adult specimens may never have seen. Sepiks and kutubus can hold a grudge too, and a shoal might decide to run a goby out.

Basically im pretty sure that bigger rainbows would be safe, but thats not what most people actually own. So in a way , everybodys right. Or everybodys' wrong. lol.

The sepik pictured in the sepik profile on here is a genuine 7 incher, and I can take a picture next to a ruler if anyone genuinely disputes this.In fact hes sparring with his identical twin at the moment, and even though im about 11 feet away I can still hear them hitting each other .