Engineer goby seems awesome...

So used to have a peacock eel when i kept FW Tanks. I have just recently ran across an engineer goby at my LFS for cheap. It seems as thouhg they are considered reef safe, and peaceful, however my only concern is the size. All my rockwork is fairly well secured (with only a few stacked pieces that are questionable). But my tank is only a 40gallon acrylic. How do you think a full grown engineer goby would do in this size of tank? In my opinion it is much better than the small 10 gallon the goby is currently in at my LFS.

 

It might be a little bit of a squeeze for him, but I wouldn't really worry about him suffering from it. They don't really need a ton of swimming room as long as you keep the entertained with plenty of sand to move around.

 

Not exactly reef safe though... they can get very aggressive when they get larger... not to mention become a hazard to rock work... I'd consider this with a lot of caution. Have very stable structures in your tank. 40 gallons may not be too small for the fish, but do you really want a 10" fish taking up that much room in your tank and posing a possible hazard? I'd consider this one with extreme caution, and have a back up plan should you need to get rid of it...

 

My sand bed ranges from 1" to 2.5" throughout my tank.

 

Most of my rock structure is very well stacked and against the bottom of my acrylic tank. There are only a few pieces which are a bit questionable. I understand that these fish grow very fast to adult length within a year also from what I have read. Do you think he would swim around and knock over corals or anything?

 

I honestly don't know, I've never had one... but they are known to possibly predate fish and inverts in your aquarium.

It would be a cool fish to have a tank built around, but I'd never add one to my "community" reef tank. YMMV.

 

I have an Engineer Goby. in my 75 FOWLR. I love the fish, make sure you have plent of live rock or somewhere he can hide! They typically only come out when fed. And YES, make sure your rocks are stable because they will move everything in your tank. They are amazingly strong fish, and move everything in search for a home.

They do get very large. I've seen them in the LFS as big as 2 feet long. So it may not be a fish you have forever in a 40g.

Nevertheless, if you are ok with these, they are a cool edition.

 

if you keep him well fed hell never bother fish and just have your rockscape secured good.

 

May want to read this read as well:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/fish-tank-brands-kits/engineer-goby-killer-53508.html

 

As gabby stated, but here is more from personal experience with the following gobies:

Diamond, Watchman, Engineer, Dragon.

heh, they are all the same- only that some get bigger then the others, my diamond is about 7 to 8 inches long he is a big fella, my watchman is about 3 inches long, my Engineer (rest his soul) was eaten by my carpet anemone, and my Dragon, about 4.5 inches.

All of them are TERRIBLE CHOICES for a mixed reef with bottom corals- as in lobo's, wellso's, plates, even clams, ect- these guys will burry them- on purpose- I will give you one guess why.