Diamond Goby Eating Too Much?

[clearmotions]

I recently bought a diamond goby for sand sifting. The LFS said he would be fine with eating pellets in case my sand bed didn't have enough food for him. Sure enough, he gobbles down pellets like crazy.

My question is: am I feeding him too much? I have been feeding him the New Era soft sinking pellets. I usually wad a few pellets up into the size of a small pea and drop them down to him while I'm feeding the other fish. He will eat 2-3 of these pea sized pellets every day, once a day. I've only had it for about 4 days so I haven't been able to observe any long term effects but he seems fat and happy. I'm just blown away that their stomach can hold so much food.

Should I hold back or just keep feeding the same amount? Right after he finishes off the large pellets he goes back to sifting sand again.

[xnetgeek]

It's really a question of waste, and can your tank handle the bio load. I have a massive diamond goby in my 180g tank and he sifts sand all day, my ammonia always tests at 0, my sand is always clean, little to no algae, and I dump a fair amount of food 40ML of mysis/brine/rotifers/garlic mixture almost every day and the coral grabs the excess, my inverts as well, and everything is going well. play with it a little. live food is way better than pellets anyway.

[clearmotions]

Originally Posted by xnetgeek

It's really a question of waste, and can your tank handle the bio load. I have a massive diamond goby in my 180g tank and he sifts sand all day, my ammonia always tests at 0, my sand is always clean, little to no algae, and I dump a fair amount of food 40ML of mysis/brine/rotifers/garlic mixture almost every day and the coral grabs the excess, my inverts as well, and everything is going well. play with it a little. live food is way better than pellets anyway.

Do you mean waste created by the fish or leftover food? There's definitely never any food leftover when I'm feeding it.

Also, related question: Did yours ever create massive dust storms? It's been like that continually since I got him but seems to be getting better. I have the sugar sized aragonite so I'm hoping that the skimmer eventually pulls out all of the dust so I don't have to see it every time he goes to work on the sand bed.

[devimik]

Mine eats like a pig, so he sifts sand and then when I feed, he'll swim up in the water column and feed like the other fish. My Yellow Watchman Goby on the other hand only eats what comes near his hole. Yes, mine also creates a few sand storms every once in a while, but once his holes were dug not too bad ongoing.