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My 90 gallon hillstream goby setup

7K views 45 replies 29 participants last post by  zerodameaon 
#1 ·
Hey folks, just joined here on the recommendations of a friend, and figured I'd post some photos of my favorite setup to share with you good folks. Sorry for not uploading them directly to the site or imbedding them, but I really didn't have the wherewithal to resize everything before uploading. Hope I'm not breaking any rules by linking to an offsite gallery.

http://imgur.com/a/JyRo4
 
#7 ·
Yup, that's me! Thank you very much!

Wow! Just Wow! I love the blue colored Gobies and the Amanos! I want gobies now. lol
Thanks! :D These guys have quickly become my favorite thing in the hobby. Not an afterthought fish though, they really need a designated setup.

beautiful! I love the gobies!
Thanks so much!

Nice to see you over here!! :D You know I love taht setup!
Lol, you finally talked me into it. You should come check it out in person next time you're picking up a shipment around here.

$$$NICE$$$
Jealous! very beautiful fish and set-up.
Thanks! I love that show, by the way.
 
#3 ·
Wow! Just Wow! I love the blue colored Gobies and the Amanos! I want gobies now. lol
 
#16 ·
Here are a few videos of things like courting behavior, territorial behavior, and things of that nature, if you're interested.

Stiph. percnopterygionus vids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yk-iOXAScU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCat01TK_Fw

Sicyopterus lagocephalus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0k9QYdmkw

Stiph. atropurpureus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwsz6Qo9ko8

Feeding time vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHZSvJJknM8 (maybe mute your speakers, I was listening to some music, and seem to have inadvertently captured a couple earmuff words)


Thanks, man! This tank actually grows a whole lot of gsa, seeing as how it's the only thing that stands up to their constant rasping. I wish it grew on the rocks as luxuriantly as it does on the glass though, if I miss a few days in between my weekly wipedowns, you can hardly see through the glass.

Those are some of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen. Your tank is also very natural looking and healthy. I love all of it!

-Caton
Thanks so much!

Thanks!

WOW!! Beautiful tank. With all the gobies and shrimp, it looks like a salt water aquarium....apart from the plants of course.:hihi: Nice pics too, there so crystal clear. :proud:
Lol, thanks! Pretty sure the iphone is doing most of the work with those shots though.

Amazing indeed! I've never seen those fish before, let alone heard of them!
Lol, tell me about it. Some of these guys took me forever to track down.

gorgeous setup... cheers!
Why thank you, sir!

Sent from my iPhone
Fantastic tank and fish, welcome to the forum!
Thanks, glad to be here!
 
#10 ·
Those are some of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen. Your tank is also very natural looking and healthy. I love all of it!

-Caton
 
#18 ·
Thank you! They are an immensely interesting group of fish, no? As for where I sourced these species, it's been a work in progress over the course of three years at this point. I obtained many species from Frank, of frank's aquarium, some from Msjinkzed, others from Wes Wong, and yet others, I imported on my own (oh god, the headaches involved...). Availability of these species has gotten much better though, and those I originally imported from Hong Kong can now be had stateside, though not for much less than I paid including all the associated shipping/customs fees.
 
#21 ·
Thanks, man! I hope you get around to it, would be awesome to see what your take on a hillie setup would be.

I love the first video when your huge Siamese pops out of nowhere. :D
Lol. I keep inheriting them from a buddy of mine who brings them over when they outgrow his setups. The tally's up to four, and he just said the other day, that another is almost big enough to join the gang. I'm planning a 150 modified hillstream tank centered around a group of bristol shubunkins, and they'll eventually start being phased into that setup.
 
#22 ·
That is a very nice tank dedicated to some not so common fish. I have always loved gobies and their behaviours. Keep the pictures coming as most people will never see these fish in person. That Sicyopterus lagocephalus is beautiful.
 
#26 ·
Thanks so much! I've been completely enamored with them since reading Odyssey's thread on loaches.com. If you really like the lagos, they are pretty forgiving as far as they go, and seem to be readily available as well. I know they are on a number of lists, but since not a lot of people know what they are, nobody really bothers to bring them in. Word of warning though, it took almost 2 years of seeing them as just drab gray fish before they ever bothered to color up. The dominant male used to keep just enough blue on his flanks to remind me that he could be colorful, if he ever wanted to be.

These fish would be great for a display at a zoo or museum.
Oh definitely. A lot of the bigger ones can actually scale waterfalls. Would be amazing to see them in a setup where they could display that sort of behavior. Check this out.

Sicyopterus japonicus climbing a waterfall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfMBgiXGxg0

and this possibly sicyopus from that awesome BBC documentary "Life."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y2h5

Really awesome fish and very cool looking scaping and overall tank layout.
Thanks a lot!

this tank is astonishing.
Thanks, man! I appreciate it.
 
#27 ·
That is a nice looking set up and very much out of the normal look you see in most tanks, I love the fish and the hardscape and totally agree the patina is great. I see everyone saying 'love the gobies' and I want to do some research but some look like Mudskippers or could they just be closely related, either way they are really cool. I'll have to come back and read the thread a little better but is this tank a high flow river bed type of system to keep these fish happy?
 
#29 ·
Thanks a lot! Well, mudskippers are gobies as well, and a whole lot of them tend to follow that same body plan, so it makes sense that they remind you of skippers. No need to reread the thread though, as I haven't posted much in the way of technical specs. I'm running an XP3 and a fluval 4 internal on this tank, so it's not a crazy amount of flow, especially since some of the species do come from relatively slower moving streams. Ime, the O2 is the important thing, as well as making sure to have a lot of rockwork for them. The fish burrow little tunnels under them for breeding and sleeping purposes, and also graze on them, so rockwork is simultaneously food and shelter. I didn't go through the trouble of setting up a river manifold, and given how my fish are doing, don't really think it's a necessity.

How does one get that algae on the rocks?
By having fish that scrape all other algaes off, lol.
 
#30 ·
I'm an expert at growing algae, I can have you stones/rocks green in a week for a small fee.

I thought they had to be closely related, I did do some reading on them last night and the sites I came across were good but there numbers were small, if I remember there were 3 really good sites, very cool fish. Now the big question is where in the heck did you get them, I'm guessing it would have to be someplace like wetspottropicals, etc.
 
#31 ·
Nope, I haven't felt right about shopping with them since I saw them consistently carrying Schistura pridii. Something about openly selling a fish that is supposed to only be found in a national park kind of makes me question your scruples. I got a lot from frank's, some from Msjinkzd, and some from Wes Wong.
 
#36 ·
Thanks!

I imagine these fish going really well with a riparium setup maybe in a 75. A relatively shallow tank like that would look good with of river stone and boulders, and you could make a riparium planting with grasses and palms and stuff like that that would look cool with the fast-flowing water. It might be hard however to grow very much algae though because the riparium plants tend to slurp nitrates and other nutrients real fast.
Sounds like it'd be a good setup for some of the rhinogobius and sicyopus gobies. They are carnivores, so no need for lots of algae growth. The atropurpureus and lagocephalus ime, have been pretty easy to feed on mazuri gel food. The percs will take it as well, but it takes them a while to pick up on it, and you need to have enough algae/aufwuchs around for them to subsist until they pick up on the prepared foods.

I love gobies!!! :D That is a great looking tank...plus the fish...especially the blue one, that is a really nice looking goby!
Thank you!

Wow just wow! I've heard of such tanks existing but I've never seen one before and I don't think most enthusiasts dedicate a tank this large to such an interesting group of fish. Props to you man! My only suggestion is perhaps a schooling species to utilize all the open water you have but I still love the tank either way.
Thanks! I used to have a group of meteor minnows in there, but it made the tank seem a bit busy. I will eventually be moving a group of cruciatus loaches and various kuhlis in from another setup, and that will probably be it as far as stocking goes.
 
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