Bumblebee Goby Eggs

Posted by Sarah on July 24, 2008

I just went to turn off the light in my bumblebee gobies (BBG) tank, and one of the gobies was in his shell – all you could see was his eye, and it was so cute, that I decided to take a picture.

I was happily snapping away – and then I looked and realized that there were eggs hanging from the top of the shell!

I am so excited!

We are out of tank space, so I am going to try to put the shell in a breeder net in the BBG tank to see if we can get some fry.

The only problem is that these guys are going to be tiny, and they swim around in the middle of the water column to eat so we have to keep the food moving so that they get enough to eat.

We noticed last week that one of the males was pale, and I was worried that he was sick, so I looked up pale bumblebee gobies online, and realized that the males get pale when they are ready to spawn.

Of course, I was excited, so I can’t tell you why I’m surprised that there are eggs now, but boy am I happy.

Here are the two reports I’ve read about spawning Bumblebee Gobies so far – Spawning the Bumblebee Goby, and Bee Keeping: Breeding the Bumblebee Goby.

Both of these reports indicate that their bumblebee gobies were in brackish water when they spawned, but mine are in freshwater with a temperature of 83F.

That may be part of why I’m so surprised

As I’ve mentioned before though, I did read that these gobies were freshwater fish, and so I decided to try keep them in freshwater, even though most people say that they are brackish water fish.

Although we did have a figure 8 puffer out of the tank with the bumblebee gobies, we moved him out a week ago, because one of the gobies disappeared, and I was scared that 8-Ball ate him.

So 8-Ball had to go.

If you’ve got experience raising bumblebee gobies I’d love to hear about it.

Please leave a comment and share your experiences.