Candy Stripe Goby

I recently bought a fish labeled as a "Belem Striped Goby" and after
doing some searching I figured out this was Awaous Strigatus - commonly
called a Candy Stripe Goby. I'm really happy with him - all the color
and personality that I love in a sal****er goby in my freshwater tank.
What is even better is that he's from south america - as is most of the
rest of my tank, so he fits in well.

Sadly, today I think I may have discovered his natural food source.
Cardinal Tetras were on sale today at the petstore and I've been
wanting a school of them for a while so I decided to get 12 of them. I
just added them to the tank and now I have 11 cardinals and one full
goby (at least I hope he's full).

I'm hoping that when the stress wears off from the tank change on the
cardinals they'll stop hiding on the bottom and get away from the goby.
Time will tell. I hope I didn't just buy expensive feeder fish.

-Daniel

dfreas wrote:
I recently bought a fish labeled as a "Belem Striped Goby" and after
doing some searching I figured out this was Awaous Strigatus - commonly
called a Candy Stripe Goby. I'm really happy with him - all the color
and personality that I love in a sal****er goby in my freshwater tank.
What is even better is that he's from south america - as is most of the
rest of my tank, so he fits in well.

Sadly, today I think I may have discovered his natural food source.
Cardinal Tetras were on sale today at the petstore and I've been
wanting a school of them for a while so I decided to get 12 of them. I
just added them to the tank and now I have 11 cardinals and one full
goby (at least I hope he's full).

I'm hoping that when the stress wears off from the tank change on the
cardinals they'll stop hiding on the bottom and get away from the goby.
Time will tell. I hope I didn't just buy expensive feeder fish.

-Daniel

The correct scientific name seems to be Awaous flavus If you search on
that, you'll find that the fish is a substrate sifter and not a
piscivore. Of course, that doesn't mean that cardinals can't be snack
food. Are you sure you didn't just have a cardinal die somewhere in
your tank? Or are there other fish big enough to eat cardinals?

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

Got a picture? Any chance it's this fish:

http://www.nanfa.org/articles/acgoby.shtml

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Elaine T wrote:
The correct scientific name seems to be Awaous flavus If you search
on
that, you'll find that the fish is a substrate sifter and not a
piscivore. Of course, that doesn't mean that cardinals can't be
snack
food. Are you sure you didn't just have a cardinal die somewhere in
your tank? Or are there other fish big enough to eat cardinals


I am familiar with both scientific names however you will note: "A.
flavus is probably the most popular of the amphidromous gobies within
the aquarium hobby. Aquarists frequently identify them as A. strigatus
or A. badius, however these names are synonyms of A. flavus." Flavus
isn't any more correct than Strigatus, they are the same species. Since
Strigatus seems to be more common in the aquarium trade I used it,
thinking that more people would recognize it than Flavus. If you would
like to nitpick please do it on your own time and don't involve me.

And yes I'm sure, I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't. I watched the
goby swallow the cardinal. The reference to it being his natural diet
was a joke. I doubt a goby could even catch a cardinal in the wild -
these gobys are not exceptional swimmers, they can lunge short
distances but that's about it. The only time he is going to catch any
prey at all is when it's on the bottom and comes too close.

-Daniel

Richard Sexton wrote:
Got a picture? Any chance it's this fish:

http://www.nanfa.org/articles/acgoby.shtml

Well I don't have a picture of mine but I did find some decent photos
of other candy stripe gobys when I was trying to figure out what he was
and I'm pretty sure of the identification. Take a look:
http://forum.aquariumhobbyist.com/go...ssages/60.html

Notice the red line running down the tip of both the dorsal and adipose
(I think this is the right term - correct me if I'm wrong) fins. Also
on the dorsal fin there is a second red line running through the middle
of the fin. Aside from these color traits there is also body and fin
shape which both match up exactly to what I have and the verticle
stripes along the body that I assume give the fish its name.

As for the goby you suggest it does have some similarities but also
some significant differences. Take a look at this page which includes a
photo and drawing consistent with the written description in the link
you provided:
http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/Thumb...ry.cfm?ID=3853

I'm going to use the drawing as reference since the features are more
promininent in it. Notice the dorsal fin rays that are quite
significant in this fish and not present at all in mine. Also the fin
shape in general is slightly different. The stripes are there is both
species and also the general body shape is the same. Slight color
differences are also there but since the link you provided discusses
wide variations in color I don't think that is very significant. I
would also say the head is slightly more blunt and the mouth is lower
and differently shaped.

After watching the goby interact with the cardinals this morning I
think the danger is over. He was probably just taking advantage of a
free meal. The cardinals were quite stressed when I got them back from
the LFS. I didn't realize just how badly their condition was until they
had been in my tank for a few hours and started to show their true
coloration. They are much happier now though I suspect I may loose a
few due to the bad treatment in the LFS. As long as I have at least 8
by the end of the week I'll be happy.

-Daniel

Preemptive apology: I was very grumpy when I wrote this having recently
had a long long argument with a car salesman who would not take no for
an answer. Please forgive me for snapping at you when you were only
trying to be helpful.

-Daniel

dfreas wrote:
Preemptive apology: I was very grumpy when I wrote this having recently
had a long long argument with a car salesman who would not take no for
an answer. Please forgive me for snapping at you when you were only
trying to be helpful.

-Daniel

Forgiven. I didn't mean to sound or be nitpicky - I was Google
searching because I was curious about your fish and found A. flavus in
Fishbase. Typing that synonym (better way of putting it) into Google
doubled the information I could find about the fish so I wanted to share
it with you.

Looks like a rare find and a fun fish to keep.

I am also sorry about your cardinal tetra loss. It is definately
difficult to bring a big batch of cardinals home without losing one or
two to stress. Having them eaten must be even more annoying so I'm glad
to hear that they're perking up and staying off of the bottom of the
tank. Hopefully your goby snagged a single opportunistic meal and
prefers the taste of fish food to cardinals.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

In article ,
Elaine T wrote:
dfreas wrote:
Preemptive apology: I was very grumpy when I wrote this having recently
had a long long argument with a car salesman who would not take no for
an answer. Please forgive me for snapping at you when you were only
trying to be helpful.

-Daniel

Forgiven. I didn't mean to sound or be nitpicky - I was Google
searching because I was curious about your fish and found A. flavus in
Fishbase. Typing that synonym (better way of putting it) into Google
doubled the information I could find about the fish so I wanted to share
it with you.

It's rare to find consensus among fish taxonomists but I am
seening a general agreement that Bill Eschmeyers (NSF funded)
project to catalog fish, with a history of what names it's
ever been known by seems to be very verywell accepted. So
far I have not found an ichthyologist that does not defer to
this in terms of taxonomy

http://www.calacademy.org/research/i...catsearch.html

It's available as a book, CD and online. While it won't help you
identify a fish if you type in a name it'll tel you whether it's
current, a synonym or what.

I'm interestd in the goby because as a kid I bought an old
(east german) copy of Sterba's book and the picture in there
of Gobius lyricus make you think it's an utterly stunning fish;
using Bill's catalog it became clear that's not the right name
and once you have found the correct name for it you can easily
find pictures in google, which led to my finding Goldsteins
article that said in no uncertain terms "Sterba's picture
is wrong" and the real fish is ok - interesting for a North
American native, but not the exotica and interesting fish
Sterba hinted it. Butthis candy sriped goby is pretty cool.

I've never seen one, and that's sort of unusual :-)

Nice catch.

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633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
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