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I'm researching bumble bee gobies(Brachygobius sp.) and looking for any first hand accounts of people who have at least kept and possibly bred these little fish. I'd like to know how many you bought versus how many survived, how many you kept in one tank, what size tank, what and how much decor, if there was any fighting, and if it actually resulted in dead fish? Along with what they were willing to eat and what temperature and salinity(also type of salt) they were kept at especially if you managed to get them to spawn. A specific gravity would be more helpful but I know alot of people that add small amounts of salt just measure in teaspoons per gallon. Finally if anyone can point me toward information on identifying the different species it could prove useful.

So far this article is the best I can find: http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/breeding/Lednicky_Bumblebee_Goby.html but it conflicts in several areas with other sites and opinions out there.

Two very similar species of fish are sold as Bumblebee Gobies. They have identical maintenance and breeding requirements, but if you are interested in identifying them, here are the details.

Brachygobius nunus has an anal fin that is mostly black, but with a small amount of yellow body colouration where the anterior portion of the fin joins the body.

Brachygobius xanthoxonus has an all-black anal fin. It also has a higher scale count on the lateral series, but determining scale counts on a living and moving fish is not an exercise I would recommend you try unless you actually enjoy exercises in hair-tearing frustration.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Counting rays on the 200 1/4" dots in the store tanks would probably prove impossible. But I wouldn't think on adults it would be any harder than counting barbels on the dojo loaches, stripes on the kuhlis, or trying to figure out if the sparkling gouramis are schalleri or pumilus. The sparkling gouramis took about a month and a couple dozen picture searches online to figure out. Even better try to determine if an isopod is a parasitic cirolanid that is going to harm your fish. I was staring at the tank for days until my eyes hurt. I need a good microscope for christmas....

These have 50/50 to almost completely clear anal fins.... Either it's a different species or determining it from the anal fin is not accurate and my counting didn't get far. They got the gobies in as an accident and don't seem to know much about them. Although they are trying to claim the fish are eating flake food and were bred in 100% freshwater. However they will give me a dozen for only $.75 a goby. Kinda worries me they want to get rid of them that cheap especially since one looks a little fuzzy on the top but it's really tempting me. Wonder if my boyfriend would murder me.

Mine have been in freshwater a long time. They eat well but only eat frozen or live food. I have never seen them eat a flake. If you have the tank for them, the price sounds great. They are a very interesting, very small fish.

I have two in a peaceful 55 gallon planted tank. It is fully freshwater. I bought two probably 16 to 18 months ago, they both are still alive. They do not interact with each other much. Tank mates are glass catfish, neons, two peacock gobies(they ignore the bumblebees), marbled hatchetfish, and harlequin rasbora, and dwarf puffers, and colomesus asellus.

On a side note, I have had the puffers for several years without any problems.

Long story but along with my sister's urging I ended up with some bumble bee gobies. I took down the storage container that was going to function as a future shrimp breeding tank because it had issues anyway and put a 10g in it's place. I might upgrade it to a 20g in the near future but I already have several empty 10g tanks sitting around so just used one of those. I moved about an inch worth of eco complete from my 55g, added 2 pieces of driftwood, a small limestone rock, and some java fern. Filtered with a small internal filter and heater set at 78F. Adding more limestone in the near future but I'm not going back to that petstore to get it. Most of their fish were dead or dying and they do something to their water. When I first tested it the ph was 7.2 but a few hours later I tested some water I'd poured off into a bucket and got a ph of 8.2. My test kit has proven accurate on several occasions before and after testing that water so I don't think that's it. On a good note I agreed to buy and paid for 10 but counted 13 gobies when I got them home. Definitely a good thing since a couple are rather fuzzy, several have at least one cloudy eye, and all have torn up fins. They are very active, not noticeably skinny, and in good color. I added a half dose of melafix and extra prime. They do seem quite hardy but very poorly cared for recently so maybe they'll improve and survive despite looking rather sickly.

After further research several sites say Brachygobius xanthozona survives and spawns in freshwater without too much trouble. However nunus and doriae(also mentioned as available frequently) much prefer brackish and usually spawn in low level brackish without going in freshwater. One site that mentions this difference is http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/breeding/McKane_Bumblebee_Gobies.html Which also says nunus has uneven stripes and spots like my gobies do but all pictures of nunus I've found do have a solid black anal fin. To make things interesting http://www.aquariacentral.com/faqs/brackish/FAQ6.shtml states the opposite saying doriae and/or possibly nunus adapts to full freshwater the best while B. aggregatus is definitely brackish to even fully marine. I'm not sure if I'm more or less confused the more info I try to find. Seems though most agree that some species do better in freshwater than others even if noone looks to be very good at figuring out what species they are talking about.

Currently I have a drip system setup adding marine salt mix until the tank reaches 1.005 sg. I've been testing it with my refractometer and it should take 3-4days to achieve that. I'll leave it there for awhile to see how the gobies act and then possibly use higher salinity water changes to bring it up to 1.008-1.010. Most sources I've read state a preferred salinity of 1.005-1.012 for all species.

Sham I can understand your frustration I went through it with mine. I have a species tank for 10 of these guys in a 30gal. They are adorable and fun to watch especially when they're breeding.

Mine are in 1.000+ salinity and I haven't had much trouble. For me, they breed like rabbits without any encouragement or special treatment so I must be doing something right.
I have not tried to keep them in freshwater so I won't offer an opinion on the fresh vs. brackish.

I only feed live foods with the occacional frozen (usually when I run out of live) but they don't seem to like it very much. They love brineshrimp, mosquito larvae and blackworm. I like to watch them with the brineshrimp as they chase them around the tank giving me a colourful display.
They can be slow getting to the food but if you can, watch them eat.
The death that I had was from not eating. This little guy just didn't seem to eat well at all, he would grab the food then spit it out again. Unfortunatly no matter what I tried he didn't eat right and died.

It is odd about the p.h. from the stores water, but my water straight from the tap and after sitting for 24 hours is 8.2+. It's too hard to adjust and keep it lower, so all my fish have had to get used to the high ph.

I did have some good links that I used but I can't locate them at moment if I find them I'll post them.
Good Luck they are well worth the effort.

They ate all the live daphnia that was in the tank but I'm not having much luck with frozen. The adult brineshrimp was far too big. I gave them some frozen bbs but they ignored it so I chopped off a tiny chunk of frozen rotifers and they ate a few of those. Not with any enthusiasm. The fuzzy look is gone from most of them though. There's just one that is still fuzzy and he swims in spurts with moments of floating in between. I'm not sure he's going to make it. The rest are quite active and picking at most anything they find in the tank including a couple of the trumpet snails that were living in the substrate. I think they managed to kill and eat a few snails since I see empty shells in there.

Mine are in 1.000+ salinity

1.000 is full freshwater so if you are adding salt it has to be over 1.000. How do you measure out your salt? So far the tank is around 1.003 and I think I've added about 5tsp worth of marine salt.

1.000+ (plus) more specificaly 1.010 - 1.015
I'm fairly easy about it.
I do a water change add salt to new water (measured with teaspoon) then add water to tank. Check a bit later to see if sg is right if not I add a bit more.
It's usually close enough on the first try. I just make sure the addition of salt is basically the same for every 10litres added.
The variance depends on how much evaporation there has been. If alot has evaporated between water changes I'll add a little less to one of the 10 litres.
Like I said I'm fairly laid back about it.

Ohh and I was mistaken before when I said I hadn't kept them in freshwater I have briefly, when I moved house.
Forgot about that, they were much quieter, didn't hover around as much and were generally hiding. They didn't eat as well either.
I much prefer them in brackish.

The adult brineshrimp was far too big.

I've had mine for 18mths maybe 2yrs now so their quite large (for BB's) so the brineshrimp don't seem to be a problem for them. I don't feed it often though, as it's expensive. They mainly get it when the place I used to work at -a Tropical and Coldwater fish wholesaler- doesn't sell all of their supply and it needs to be used (never say no to free stuff)
If you can get mosquito lavae small sizes if better and black worm they love that.
Just be careful with the mozzie larvae, if they don't eat it all you could end you with the blood suckers flying around your house.
I find if I swish the surface of the tank, when the lavae settle there, making them wiggle to the bottom, there's not much left over. When they're on the surface the BB's don't think it's alive so they won't eat it.
They seem to prefer to eat in the lower levels of the tank anyway.

more specificaly 1.010 - 1.015

That makes a big difference. It's the highest I've heard so far of anyone who's successfully bred them. Most who have gotten fry say they keep them around 1.004-1.005 and move the eggs to freshwater before hatching. I really doubt that's necessary though if even a good idea.

Mosquito larvae is hard to get now. Not too many places want to raise it inside. Outside it's suppose to snow tomorrow. All spring to fall it's not a problem though. I'm always scraping the mosquito larvae off the tops of the water tanks in the horse pasture. Along with various other aquatic creatures. If I can just get the gobies through the winter. I might have to cultivate more daphnia since they seemed to really like that. I wonder if saltwater pods would survive once I raise the salinity a little more...?

Bumble bee gobies love saltwater copepods. They crossed the entire tank to hunt the pods down. Now if I can just dig enough out of my little saltwater tank to feed them all. I needed to do some maintenance on the refugium anyway.

Mosquito larvae is hard to get now. Outside it's suppose to snow tomorrow.

Ahh good point I didn't even look at where your from. It's summer here and I've got more lavae then I know what to do with. Only problem is it's so hot they develop very fast and it becomes hazardous to venture outside after dark,
which is too bad as the night time temp isn't much better then the day.

As I said I don't monitor the salinity as much as I should which is why I had to give you a between figure.
If I do raise the fry I move them with dad into a raising tank until they hatch then I remove dad. If I don't they just become fish food.

It's fun to watch them chase the food isn't it. Let's hope that you can keep up the supply.

Bottomless pits. Between last night and today they ate every pod I could clean off the filter media and out of the refugium. I setup a 4g bucket with some algae and a small light for growing extra copepods. Good thing they are easy to cultivate but they are a bit slow to multiply. I'll have to go beg some off people until then. The gobies won't eat any size of frozen brineshrimp, squid, or a couple mixed frozen foods I tried but ate a little frozen cyclops. Between that and the live pods most of them are sitting around with fat bellies. Only a couple of the smaller ones had trouble finding pods tiny enough they could eat and are still a bit skinny. All the fuzziness is gone so I've stopped adding melafix. Definitely hardy little things since despite the sad state they were in I think I still have 13. Trying to count them as they bounce around the tank isn't easy but I haven't found any dead ones when I shift the rock and driftwood. Salinity is at 1.004.

Don't know if this will prove tobe a solution to your live food problems Sham, but it might work ...

If you can find some Crangonyx pseudogracilis freshwater amphipods, and cultivate them, they may provide an additional food source alongside your Cyclops. Not sure how fast these things reproduce though. However, I'm assured by a fellow invertebrate zoologist that these critters have another use - they eat blanket weed.

Crangonyx pseudogracilis is native to North America, and has turned up as a semi-naturalised introduction here in the UK.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I've actually been wanting to get some to see if they would get rid of that nasty blanket weed but aside from them showing up on aquabid on rare occasion I haven't seen them. The only problem is I've heard the adult amphipods will eat the goby fry if they manage to establish in the tank. Although it's not going to be a freshwater tank in the near future. If everything wasn't so frozen I'd just go scoop up some native water, dump it in a container with a sponge filter, and see what grows.