Yellow Clown Goby Care Guide
Gobiodon okinawae is a tiny bright-yellow coral goby that perches among the branches of staghorn Acropora corals in the Western Pacific.
Compiled by Aquairi from published sources · Published · Updated
Overview
Gobiodon okinawae, the Yellow Clown Goby, is a very small marine coral goby of the Western Pacific. It is uniformly bright yellow with whitish cheek patches and lacks scales. FishBase notes it is a coral-commensal species that hovers among or above coral branches rather than burrowing. It was described by Sawada, Arai and Abe in 1972.
Taxonomy
- Family: Gobiidae
- Genus: Gobiodon
- Scientific name: Gobiodon okinawae
Habitat
FishBase records the species in the Western Pacific from southern Japan south to Rowley Shoals and the southern Great Barrier Reef, plus Palau and the Marshall Islands. It lives among staghorn Acropora corals in lagoons, often in aggregations of 5 to 15 individuals, at depths of usually 2 to 15 m.
Tank requirements
- Minimum tank volume: 50 L
- Temperature: 24-26 °C (75-79 °F)
- pH: 8.1-8.4
- Specific gravity: 1.024-1.026
- Carbonate hardness: 8-12 dKH
- Maximum size: about 3.5 cm
- Lifespan: 3-6 years
Diet
A planktivore that feeds on mesoplankton in the wild, darting from its perch to capture passing food. In the aquarium it takes small meaty foods such as cyclops, enriched brine shrimp and finely chopped mysis, fed twice daily.
Compatibility
Generally non-aggressive except toward other yellow clown gobies. It suits calm companions such as clownfish, cardinalfish and wrasses; lionfish and other predators should be avoided. Its defense is a poisonous, bitter skin mucus that makes it unpalatable.
Reef compatibility
Reef-safe with the caveat that it perches on branching Acropora and may occasionally nip at small-polyp stony coral polyps. It is otherwise harmless to the reef and benefits from living among coral branches.
Breeding
Wikipedia reports it is a bidirectional protogynous hermaphrodite, beginning life as female. Eggs are laid in circular bands around coral in masses up to about 1,000 and hatch in roughly five days.
Conservation status
IUCN Red List: Least Concern (assessed 28 June 2018).
Gobiodon okinawae Breeding Guide
Overview
Gobiodon okinawae is a small western Pacific coral goby ranging from southern Japan, including Okinawa, to the southern Great Barrier Reef (Wikipedia). It reaches about 3.5 cm and roosts in the outer branches of Acropora corals in sheltered lagoons, often in groups of 5 to 15 individuals. Its small size and coral-perching habit make it a candidate for dedicated breeding projects in mature reef systems.
Sexing
The species is a bidirectional protogynous hermaphrodite: when two individuals of the same sex settle together, one changes sex to form a breeding pair (Wikipedia). Because sex is flexible, fixed external sexing is unreliable, and pairs are formed simply by housing two compatible fish together and allowing one to transition.
Conditioning
Conditioning is built on stable reef water and regular small carnivore feeds such as enriched mysis, baby brine and finely chopped marine foods offered about twice daily. A settled pair with a coral or branched structure to claim shows the perching and territorial behaviour that precedes spawning.
Breeding Setup
A breeding setup provides branched Acropora or comparable branched structure on which the pair can perch and deposit eggs. In a documented captive spawn the parents laid eggs on a dead Acropora skeleton, which was then removed for separate incubation (Reef Builders). A mature, stable reef tank with calm flow and good water quality supports the pair.
Spawning Behavior & Trigger
Eggs are laid in circular bands around coral branches in masses of up to about a thousand, and the male fertilises and guards them until hatching roughly five days later (Wikipedia). In the De Jong Marinelife captive account a clutch of 50 to 200 eggs on an Acropora skeleton showed about a 90% hatch rate (Reef Builders).
Egg & Fry Care
Newly hatched larvae are only about 2 mm and too small for rotifers or Artemia nauplii, so the captive protocol used copepod nauplii, cryo-preserved barnacle larvae and ciliates with greenwater, in a black round tub at a stable 26 °C under an 18:6 photoperiod (Reef Builders). Larvae stayed in the water column for nearly 40 days, with metamorphosis around day 40 and tradeable 1 cm size by about 80 days post-hatch.
Common Challenges
The decisive challenge is first feeding: at 2 mm the larvae cannot take standard rotifers or brine shrimp, so failure to supply suitable copepod nauplii and ciliates is the usual cause of total loss. The long pelagic phase of around 40 days also demands sustained water quality and consistent micro-food culture.