Amblygobius Linki (Link's Goby) are not so friendly as you might think!

[Reef_at_Sea]

Hello there,

I would like to make an educational post about the aggression of a Amblygobius Linki.
It has come to my notice that alot of reefers think that an Amblygobius Linki is perfectly peacefull towards other fish except to their own species.
I would like to say that this is NOT true & i will you tell you why in story about my dead wrasse & the probable cuplrit the Linki.

I have a 50g tank wich at the time held 2 occelaris clownfish & a salarias fasciatus.
2 weeks later i decided to add a Leucoxanthus wrasse & a Amblygobius Linki.
First days went by & everything seemed fine, till i found my wrasse swimming around with tailfin damage, weird.. still ate tho, so i thought it might be mechanical damage.
A day later i found my wrasse with EVEN MORE tailfin damage, still ate but had a little trouble swimming (i posted this on R2R forum & Mr Jay Hemdal was concerned the troubled swimming could be something else since wrasse use their front fins way more than their back fins)
Fish still ate, so i kept observing.
A day later in the morning i found the wrasse stuck against the overflow, in first instance i thought it was dead but when i touched it the wrasse swiftly swam towards the sand & dived right in not to be seen again for another day.
A day went by and i have gotten the advice to put the wrasse in a acclimation box for observation, sadly i couldn't find the wrasse so i gave it another day.
The next day i sadly found the Wrasse dead between the rocks.

Not knowing what happend at the time, i took my defeat & went towards my LFS who is VERY respected in the reefing community & told him my story.
The man at the LFS told me that the LINKI might be the problem, i couldn't believe my ears! "But but... they are supposed to be peacefull little buggers?"
Another week went by & i decided to add the last new fish of my tank together with the help of my LFS.
I chose a Centropyge Bispinosa (coral beauty), a Pseudocheilinops ataenia wrasse & a Pseudochromis fridmani basslet.
Those fish are now still alive in my tank but this is where the story gets interesting.

While observing my tank, i noticed the Linki darting towards the Fridmani & the ataenia wrasse whenever they came to close!
Thankfully the Fridmani & ataenia are way to fast & don't fight back at all and the Linki stops chasing them very quickly too.
And to this day the relationship between these fish is still a little wobbly but they seem to get more kind to eachother as the days pass by.

My summary to this story is that a link's goby is probably not always that friendly towards your new fish! Especially when this new fish doesn't back down to a fight!
To this day i still have no proof that the Leucoxanthus wrasse died to the aggression of the Link's Goby but this aggression towards my new fish sparks up that question.

I am open to questions and discussion about this topc!

Note that my main language is not english & i am by no means a specialist fish keeper nor am i a specialist reefer, i have been in the hobby for only 7 months now.
I am throwing this on the forum for educational & informational purposes only.

 

[areefer01]

Are you sure you have a Links Goby (Amblygobius linki)? They are sand sifters living on the lower part of the reef on the substrate. They are not open water swimmers.

I have one in my 210 gallon display and it is a model citizen. It goes about its day on the sandbed taking scoops of it sifting for food. I have not seen it defend its sleeping burrow when a lyretail damsel took it to spawn. It just went about its business and found a new place. I have another goby on the lower part of my reef, upside down goby, and it doesn't bother that either.

Here is a brief video of mine. I understand that all systems are different and that animals behave differently in our environments. I have not experienced mine being aggressive in any way nor have I lost any fish.

 

[Reef_at_Sea]

Are you sure you have a Links Goby (Amblygobius linki)? They are sand sifters living on the lower part of the reef on the substrate. They are not open water swimmers.

I have one in my 210 gallon display and it is a model citizen. It goes about its day on the sandbed taking scoops of it sifting for food. I have not seen it defend its sleeping burrow when a lyretail damsel took it to spawn. It just went about its business and found a new place. I have another goby on the lower part of my reef, upside down goby, and it doesn't bother that either.

Here is a brief video of mine. I understand that all systems are different and that animals behave differently in our environments. I have not experienced mine being aggressive in any way nor have I lost any fish.

Yes, i'm 100% sure, it is the exact same fish as in your video & it behaves exactly the same.
But no, mine is not the perfect citizen.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Fish, like people, dogs, cats, or squirrels have general patterns of behavior, but each has its own personality. Some of these may be more or less aggressive than their baseline species. I don't know if your Goby is the culprit or not, but even if it was that does not equate to a change in the general observation that they are peaceful fish.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Mine was quite docile and did not come out much until I moved some more aggressive fish out of the tank, so maybe yours just didn’t like the wrasse or maybe the wrasse and it tried to share the same hole? With all sand sifting gobies, they probably do get territorial around their den but never when away from their tiny hole.

 

[Reef_at_Sea]

Fish, like people, dogs, cats, or squirrels have general patterns of behavior, but each has its own personality. Some of these may be more or less aggressive than their baseline species. I don't know if your Goby is the culprit or not, but even if it was that does not equate to a change in the general observation that they are peaceful fish.

I 100% agree, i made this post with the same theory, if i and maybe others remained silent about this situation the general observation would never change.

 

[areefer01]

I 100% agree, i made this post with the same theory, if i and maybe others remained silent about this situation the general observation would never change.

If the Links is still in the display and you have a GoPro or similar camera record the display for a battery duration. Go back later and review. Make sure during that time you get at least one feeding in. All of the fish you mentioned are faster and use different swim lanes.

As I mentioned and others we know all fish are different so maybe yours is a one off or just had a bad day, or week. A bit of a bummer as they are fun fish to have around. I'm planning on getting a couple more to see if I can get them to spawn.