The Full Dragon Goby Care Information

The Dragon Goby is only one of many various species of gobies. These are spiny-finned fish belonging to the Gobiidae household.

These small, meat-eating fish are discovered all around the world however are particularly prevalent in tropical waters.

This text will let you know all the pieces that it’s essential know when preserving the Dragon Goby in your aquarium at house.

Dragon Goby Info & Overview

The Dragon Goby is also called the Violet Goby as a result of it has a sexy deep purple shade. It is usually generally known as a Dragon Fish or a Dragon Eel.

The scientific identify of the Dragon Goby is the Gobioides Broussonnetii. It belongs to the household often called Gobiidae.

The Dragon Goby is a brackish water fish. It wants water that has some saline content material, however shouldn’t be as salty as seawater. They’re native to the brackish waters of the Atlantic Ocean alongside the shoreline of North America and South America.

A newbie aquarist simply beginning out on his passion of preserving fish in a house aquarium may discover it considerably difficult to maintain a Dragon Goby, as they do require a certain quantity of specialised care.

The Dragon Goby is an aggressive species that may react viciously to different specimens within the tank, so you will need to know how one can look after this fish and how one can arrange its tank.

Probably as a result of the Dragon Goby requires a good quantity of consideration, it isn’t a vastly in style fish for the house aquarium. Nevertheless, for skilled aquarists, it’s a sensible choice and is offered from most aquarium provide shops.

Count on to pay between $10 – $15 for a wholesome Dragon Goby. It’s all the time advisable to purchase from a good retailer, so as to be assured that the fish that you simply put in your tank is freed from illness.

A wholesome dragon Goby might be anticipated to stay for as much as 10 years in the fitting situations.

Typical Conduct

The Dragon Goby shows extremely aggressive tendencies in sure circumstances. Consequently, it’s typically labeled as an aggressive fish. Nevertheless, this isn’t essentially correct.

It seems to be extraordinarily fierce, because it has a giant mouth and lots of sharp tooth. Nevertheless, it’s a predator scavenger. So long as it’s fed commonly, it won’t attempt to eat different smaller fish.

The Dragon Goby doesn’t have a superb imaginative and prescient. Due to this fact it’s typically victimized by different larger fish that is aware of its weak spot and incapacity to defend itself if taken abruptly.

Look

The Dragon Goby is usually thought-about to be a really fairly fish. It seems to be rather a lot like an eel. It’s lengthy and skinny, with a big, spherical, dome-shaped head.

Its eyes are very small in relation to the scale of its head and are positioned on the edges of the pinnacle. This causes it to have poor eyesight.

The colour of the Dragon Goby often varies amongst totally different shades of lilac, violet, and purple. That’s the reason it’s also often called the Violet Goby. Nevertheless, it additionally typically has a golden tinge to its fins.

Initially, you might not have the ability to differentiate between the fins and the remainder of the physique of the Dragon Goby. Each the anal fins and the dorsal fins are seen when trying on the entire fish.

The ventral fins are simply seen behind the gills. These fins allow the Dragon Goby to carry onto rocks and transfer across the tank.

Dragon Gobies fluctuate in measurement however can develop to be fairly massive. They’re identified to be one of many largest species of gobies.

In its pure habitat, a Dragon Goby can develop to a size of as much as 24 inches. When saved in captivity, its progress is restricted. It should often not develop larger than 15-16 inches when saved in a tank.

The Dragon Goby has lots of extraordinarily sharp tooth. This provides them a vicious look, however they often solely use these tooth for consuming and scraping rocks for algae. They are going to seldom use their tooth to assault one other fish.

A wholesome Dragon Goby can be purple in shade however can have a glowing, shimmery hue that provides it a golden tinge.

Female and male Dragon Gobies look nearly precisely the identical. The one method to differentiate between them is by inspecting the genital papilla. The males are lengthy and tapered, whereas the females are usually not as lengthy, and are rather a lot flatter.

Habitat and Tank Situations

Even supposing the Dragon Goby was initially native to the areas alongside the Atlantic shoreline, it’s now extra generally present in estuaries and bays of brackish water. It enjoys areas with a substrate of mud.

Tank Situations

In a house aquarium, the Dragon Goby will do properly in brackish water that has a saline content material that’s about 25% of that of seawater.

Nevertheless, in case you want to hold  Dragon Goby in a freshwater tank, this may be accomplished. You would need to acclimate the fish to the brand new water situations very step by step, by slowly eradicating small volumes of the salty water and changing it with clear, freshwater.

On this manner the saltwater can be diluted an increasing number of with recent water, eradicating the saline content material from the water.

The entire course of shouldn’t be rushed and must be carried out over a interval of some weeks. Finally, all of the water within the tank can be freshwater, and your Dragon Goby ought to cope properly within the new situations.

The perfect water temperature for a Dragon Goby is between 78° – 82° Fahrenheit. This carefully resembles the water temperature in its native atmosphere.

You will have a thermometer, so as to have the ability to monitor the temperature of the water. Relying on outdoors situations, you might also want a water heater.

The pH stage of the water shouldn’t be too excessive at both finish of the size. A pH of between 6.5 – 8.5 will be sure that the water is neither too acidic nor too alkaline for the Dragon Goby.

Brackish water wants a certain quantity of salt. The saline stage must be maintained at between 1.006 – 1.008.

Take care to maintain ammonia ranges low in your tank. If there may be an excessive amount of ammonia within the water, the Dragon Goby will battle to breathe.

Younger Dragon Gobies get pleasure from spending their time coated in mud. It’s a good suggestion to have a 3-inch thick layer of sand on the backside of the tank, to create an acceptable muddy atmosphere.

A Dragon Goby’s tank should have no rocks. Their fins are delicate and might be simply injured on the rocks. This will have disastrous penalties, inflicting an infection which may presumably even kill your Dragon Goby.

What Dimension Aquarium Do They Want?

The Dragon Goby might be fairly a big fish when totally grown. It wants lots of area to realize its full progress potential. The tank must be a minimal of 25 gallons, however it’s advisable to have a 50-gallon tank to permit for growth.

When you have multiple Dragon Goby in your aquarium, the tank must be a minimal of fifty gallons, so as to permit them every to have sufficient area with out invading one another’s territory.

With most aquatic specimens, the amount of the tank is often one of the best information when contemplating the mandatory tank measurement. However sometimes, as with the Dragon Goby, you’ve gotten a specimen of fish that’s significantly lengthy.

In a case like this, it’s also vital to take a look at the size of the tank. The Dragon Goby wants sufficient area to swim round. Even in case you solely have one Dragon Goby in your aquarium, it must be a minimal of 4 ft lengthy, so as to give your fish ample area to swim.

If you need your Dragon Goby to get pleasure from an extended and joyful life, it’s advisable to present him as a lot tank room as doable. It appears to make a big distinction to the lifespan of this species.

Tank Mates

The Dragon Goby can flip aggressive when it feels threatened, however that doesn’t imply that it has to spend its life in ‘solitary confinement’, alone in a tank.

If you need so as to add different specimens to your aquarium, it is strongly recommended solely to pair the Dragon Goby with calm and tranquil brackish fish which might be barely smaller.

However, although, it’s also very important to make sure that the Dragon Goby doesn’t view its tank mates as a possible meal. It should prey on any fish that it thinks it’d have the ability to eat.

There’s a fantastic steadiness between guaranteeing that the Dragon Goby doesn’t see its tank mates as a risk, and it doesn’t take into account it to be meals. The one method to stop it from consuming its fellow fish is to be sure that they aren’t too small.

Eating regimen

The Dragon Goby is a scavenging omnivore. So as to be sure that your Dragon Goby stays wholesome, and refrains from making an attempt to eat its tank mates, it’s important to feed it the right food regimen.

For those who prefer to feed dry meals, they may do properly on a daily serving to of small pellets, flakes, or algae wafers. However this shouldn’t be their solely supply of meals.

It is suggested so as to add a daily feed of both frozen or stay meaty meals. They are going to get pleasure from blood worms and small items of fish like shrimps.

The precise meals particles shouldn’t be too huge. These fish would not have a large throat. Their throats are narrower than common, so huge items of meals are tough for them to swallow

For those who observe a daily feeding schedule, your Dragon Goby will quickly study to anticipate its subsequent meal and can look forward to it. The Dragon Goby must be fed as soon as a day, at kind of the identical time day-after-day.

Take care to not overfeed your dragon Goby. It ought to have the ability to end the meals that it’s provided inside a couple of minutes. If it doesn’t, you might be presumably giving an excessive amount of

Care

Caring to your Dragon Goby isn’t too tough, after getting arrange the tank. We propose that you simply observe the rules given above for how one can get the tank arrange accurately, and obtain the optimum tank situations.

The Dragon Goby, like most aquarium fish, wants a clear tank. Probably the most time-consuming features of caring for it’s preserving the tank clear.

Water must be modified commonly, to stop an overgrowth of issues like algae within the water. When altering the water, you shouldn’t change all of it directly. Relatively, a daily partial alternative of outdated water with new, clear water will be sure that the water stays clear.

It may be very useful to make use of a testing package, out there from any aquarium provide retailer, to check the standard of the water. This will point out when water must be modified, or have sure components added to the water.

Paying cautious consideration to the state of the water, and guaranteeing that it’s all the time clear, is one of the simplest ways to stop illness in your fish. Like all fish, the Dragon Goby is vulnerable to sure widespread illnesses that may have an effect on it if the water isn’t saved clear.

Breeding

Earlier on this article, we defined how one can differentiate the male from the feminine Dragon Goby. That is needed for breeding functions.

Group 2-3 females with just one male within the tank. The male will in all probability breed with all the females within the tank on the identical day, offered breeding situations are ideally suited.

To create one of the best breeding situations, scale back the quantity of meals given for a couple of days. Then begin including extra stay meals, to extend the protein of their food regimen.

As soon as they’re consuming the excessive protein meals, scale back the saline content material to 1.004, and a day later enhance it to 1.023. The sudden change will spark the breeding course of.

As soon as the feminine dragon Gobies have laid their eggs, switch the females to a different tank. The male will guard the eggs till they hatch, which takes a couple of days.

As soon as the eggs have hatched, take away the male, and the infants will slowly begin rising into wholesome little Dragon Gobies.

Is the Dragon Goby Appropriate For Your Aquarium?

Supplied that every one its wants are met, as specified by our pointers above, the Dragon Goby might be an fascinating addition to a house aquarium.

If you have already got some expertise with preserving fish, and you aren’t afraid of slightly further work to make sure that your Dragon Goby stays wholesome, then there is no such thing as a purpose to not have one in your aquarium.