Orange Diamond gobys for a 24gallon

So after i got him home i looked him up ( i know big mistake) but i saw on liveaquaria that 50 g is the min size.So my question is do i need to take him back because other then kicking up sand to all hell and back he does an awesome job of cleaning a much need dirty sand bed.I have been fighting cyno for a month and he went to town on it even tryed cleaning the rocks. I have several friends with small tanks and this fish so i was wondering what you guys thought.

 

They grow to 6 inches so that is one reason why a larger tank is recommended. Also it will quickly strip the sand clean of any food in a small tank so you will need to feed it VERY frequently to keep it from starving to death. My friend at the LFS tells me all the time Sand sifters do not do well in captivity but I cannot comment on that as I have never owned one. I know you realise your mistake in purchasing before researching so I won't holler at you.lol Good luck.

 

It may take a few months, but IMOPE, once he has eradicated all life forms from your sand bed, he'll starve as they don't compete well for food. You'd do better with a couple of large nassarius snails or a fighting conch to clean your sand.

 

I have one of this guys in my tank, and one day I was feeding my emeral crab with the feeding stick and i noticed that my sand sifting goby was showing interest so I put a smaller piece and put him near him with our moving the stick and he actually came to it and took it.. so you can feed him that way and make sure he gets the needed nutrition. If you want you can soak the food in selcon before feeding

Hope it helps

 

I have a 5" Banded Goby and he competes for food just fine. He has sifted all of the sand bed in my 55 and now takes any food that I feed to everyone else, in fact he is the bully of the tank! He is in with 2 clowns, Kole Tang, Starry Blenny, and 3 firefish.

JME

 

Tough to compare a Banded Goby to a Diamond. They are much less shy and listed as semi aggressive.

 

My 6-spot sleeper (basically a diamond without diamonds) is the first one to the turkey baster when I feed. Everyone waits for him to get out of the way and if I don't squirt fast enough he bites it LOL. Both of my diamonds I had years ago had no problem competing for food. Of course, I also don't keep other aggressive fish, but I can't imagine the OP does either in a 24 gallon tank.

Yes, they do get too big for a 24. You could always take him back and get a tiger fighting conch for your sandbed cleaning needs.

 

Yeah im afraid that my bio load will become too much.But to catch this guy i will have to tear down the reef.He is a crazy fast guy that took the LFS 10 min to catch

 

Thought this post is on actual orange diamonds

 

no we are in the saltwater hobby..we cant afford real diamonds