Need some advice on my Yellowheaded Sleeper Goby

I've had my goby for about 10 months now, so he's been doing fine, but I made a mistake a few months ago and need some help if anyone has any ideas.

When I bought my goby, I had a fine grain live sand bed and he would eat from it fine but kick up an awful dust storm, even months after I bought him. I couldn't deal with that constantly as it was jamming up a lot of my equipment and made the tank look ugly. I finally decided to put some more granular sand on top of my bed. I didn't think about it when I did it, but the sand I put in the tank wasn't alive.

It's been almost 5 months now and sand has nothing growing on/in it, and besides some worms and the pods I supplement, nothing is really "in" the sand for him to eat. So he's been slowly getting skinnier and skinnier each month. I fed him every day with mysis shrimp or emerald entree dipped with selcon. He also eats greens whenever I put it in the tank. I'm doing all I can to supplement his diet but the sand isn't growing anything and he clearly needs to eat from it. It's really sad because he scoops up sand all day, yet is still skinny. I've even let my nitrates raise a bit to see if I could grow something but still nothing.

The last thing I haven't done is raise my light hours. Currently I have lights on for 7 hours a day and was considering raising them to 8, possibly 9 hours to see if it made a difference. I have no coral in this tank(90 gal) only inverts and fish. Is this a bad idea? Figured the worst that could happen is I get some extra algae. My nitrates are about 10ppm this week.

So I'm looking for any solutions to populate sand with food that a yellowheaded sleeper goby could eat? I'm willing to buy products if need be, just anything so I can get him fattened up a bit.

Thanks in advanced to any helpers!

 

Some Sandsifters get a parasite in their stomachs where they just keep getting skinnier. I would feed him food soaked in a garlic solution to help him out.

 

Would there be any other signs of parasites? His poop is usually light green / green color, sometimes stringy though. Never white. That could be a possibility.

 

Not sure about that, i kept a sleeper goby for about a year and he was fine. But honestly not sure of the signs.

 

Same thing happened to mine. I tried feeding more and more throughout the day but then I started getting algae problems because of all the crap I was introducing in my system. He disappeared shortly after, never to be seen again. I hear a lot of clammer about sand sifter gobies not lasting a long time - maybe about a year or so on average. That might be true or not, but seems to be the trend. I hope you can get him back to health though, i LOVE those sleeper gobies they are awesome.

 

I am of the mind set that you can not keep these fish a long time ( like years ) for the most part. Maybe a few can but it seems like it always ends the same. Fish appears to be eating, slow decline and noticeable weight loss over a couple month period to like 6 months.

This is the reason I like YWG and similar types. They are not dependent on the sand bed as their main source of nutrition.

 

That's discouraging =/. I bought him back in July so it's been awhile. I'm thinking it's worth it to buy a few bottles of pods to stick in there(few varieties), and increase the lightning then. My Algae is well controlled at the moment, and if it means saving a fish, I'll deal with a bloom. There's got to be a product out there that can nurture more life in your sand.

On that note, I find it very strange that every site I read on YH sleeper gobys, say they are carnivorous, while mine eats nori, and other greens all the time. Anyone else have that experience?

Thanks so far for the information, ++.

 

This has been my experience as well. I don't know anybody who has been able to keep these and other sand sifting fish long term, even with supplemental feeding.

 

Everything I've researched on the internet shows that no one has kept them for longer than a year. I'm discouraged, but not convinced. He gets food every day so as long as that's happening he'll survive I believe, but I need to step it up as surviving is not good enough for me. Looks like I'll be building a new Refugium and buying some extra pod bottles for the time being.

Still looking for any additional advice.

Thanks so far!

 

Actually had another thought:

I feed my fish 1 cube a day, and every other day I give them nori.

My fish:
- 3.5 inch flame angel
- 5 inch scopas tang
- 3 inch clown
- 2 inch clown
- 2 inch YT damsel
- 4.5 inch Yellowhead sleeper goby

Am I not feeding them enough to cultivate more critters in my sand? My clowns, tang, and angel all have flat or round bellies so I believe they are well fed, if not too much. I only feed at night, once at around 7pm, then again @ 9pm, and if any extra food, 1 more feeding at around 10pm, all from 1 cube I thaw in a dish. Just another thought, if that affected the situation.