Yellow Clown Goby

[Wy Renegade]

The perfect fish for small to pico tanks, the Clown goby rarely moves around the tank and generally stays in a 5 cubic inch area. Very peaceful fish, they typically perch on a piece of coral which they claim as their home. While they prefer the branches of SPS corals, they will also claim some LPS like Candy Cane corals, and some softies such as gorgonia and leathers.

Clown gobies come in a variety of colors, of which the yellow is most common. Other colors include Black, Citron, Green, and Red. All are generally a very peaceful fish, the exception being the Citron which is much more boisterous and will bully any and all other Clown gobies. The Green is typically the King of the tank, and will often claim more than one home.

Caution is highly recommended when introducing these fish into an SPS dominated tank. While they are known for laying their eggs in the branches of acro sp., and this can be an exciting event to witness, egg laying is not the primary reason for their picking at the acropora. In the wild, Clown gobies eat acropora mucous.In order to do so, they pick at the corals until they irritate it enough to produce mucous and then they consume the mucous. While it is generally accepted that if the SPS colony is large enough and the fish are well enough fed, it should not cause too much damage to your corals, there are horror stories of entire SPS dominated tanks being decimated by Yellow Clown gobies. Be warned!

These fish are known to be hard to get to feed in a home aquarium. Many will not take prepared foods at all preferring their main diet of coral mucous. Within the non SPS dominated aquarium, flake food is their favorite, but small meaty foods such as Mysis and Cyclopeeze are readily accepted by them as well.