The house that Jack and Jill built (pics of my gobies)

Blinky

Blinky

Gone
Jun 22, 2004
2,995
0
0
51
Toronto, Canada
Visit site
For a long time my pair of sixspot gobies did what I expected sand-sifting gobies to do. They sifted the sand, keeping it nice and clean (and the water perpetually cloudy :rolleyes: ). Then one day, they decided their cave under the rock needed some work... and holy cow, they built themselves a mansion.

The house:
JJhouseFeb6Small.jpg


The ongoing building project (I don't think they have a permit for this thing!):
JJHouse2Feb6Small.jpg


One goes in, the other comes out - they really work as a team:
JJhouse3Feb6Small.jpg


In comes the building inspector...
JJhousehawkFeb6Small.jpg


Jill sends the hawk on his way:
JJhousehawk2Feb6Small.jpg


Jack joins in:
JJhousehawk3Feb6Small.jpg


And building resumes...
JJhouse4Feb6Small.jpg


And that's the crazy house that Jack and Jill built!! Thanks for looking :D
 
Hey guys :D
They really do a good job on the sand, I have to say. It's clean, it's white, but... unfortunately 90% (okay I'm exaggerating here) of it is in a HUGE PILE on the right side of the tank! LOL I can't wait to see what they're going to do with this thing once they're done building it - they've been obsessed for about a week now, it's getting bigger and bigger. I'm starting to wonder if they're trying to build a way out...
 
I think you should worry more about what they're constructing under the rock. Have you seen any odd charges on your credit card?
 
a while back I had a pair of orange spotted sand sifting gobie that would do the same thing, during the day taking turns hauling mouthfull of substrate out of cave then at night filling the cave entrance with substrate, AND THE COOLEST PART was they would dart very quickly into the covered opening to their cave and chillout all night. the way they dart into the cave at night is a cool thing to see, and it would still leave the cave entrance blocked for shelter.

have you noticed yours doing what I described at night? Oh another thing was that they would do this 10-15min before lights out.
 
LOL Dave now that you mention it, they do seem awfully protective of their house, maybe there's something 'fishy' going on in there! :D

Somuchtolearn, these guys do exactly what you describe - run about all day with mouthfulls, perfecting their structure, sometimes opening up the entrance, sometimes blocking it up (they do this when the hawk gets too nosy, then open it back up when he goes away). They spend their nights under the rock together with the entrance closed up - they've got a bunch of shells they use as a doorway :)
 
what kind of gobies are these? I am looking for a couple for my tank.......and I like fish that are interesting.....
 
the ones I had are also labeled diamond watchman goby at fish stores. they were white bodied with orange spots along the length of the body. if you don't already have a tight lid on the aquarium or enclosed top, do so because they may want to jump out of the tank.

another interesting fish that digs tunnels are jawfish. the cool thing about them is that their tunnels stay intact (some kind of mucus on their bodies) and they will will do "peek a boo" motion. I would purposely pile deeper areas in front of the tank and finger a tunnel to persuade the fish to be active where I can see.

if you have not done so, have your rock structure start at the bottom of the aquarium as opposed to setting the rock on several inches of substrate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom