Experience with Biota Rainford/Court Jester Goby?

[tranceFusion]

I love the appearance of Rainford Gobies but I see they mostly eat pods and algae. My tank has basically no algae and a relatively low pod population. Biota's site says their captive bred should eat prepared foods and I'm wondering if anyone has experience in a similar situation keeping them on Nori and LRS frozen foods or similar? I'd rather not buy a fish that's going to be a gamble and watch it starve.

Also would they be ok with an Ocellaris clown and Tailspot Blenny?

Thanks!

 

[najer]

I love the appearance of Rainford Gobies but I see they mostly eat pods and algae. My tank has basically no algae and a relatively low pod population. Biota's site says their captive bred should eat prepared foods and I'm wondering if anyone has experience in a similar situation keeping them on Nori and LRS frozen foods or similar? I'd rather not buy a fish that's going to be a gamble and watch it starve.

Also would they be ok with an Ocellaris clown and Tailspot Blenny?

Thanks!

They are sand feeders, not sifters as such ime but do pick the sand they want to process, I had one but I can't remember which, never troubled anything.

 

[afishbestservedcold]

Definitely sand feeders/sifters for the top layer of sand at least.

I got mine a few weeks ago from LFS in New York. It was super skinny and definitely wild caught but I had to have it. I have a pretty new 4g, he's the only fish, and a LOT of copepods. I had a natural population of pods and since have supplemented with 3 species, they are great for eating the algae off the glass. My rainfords has refused baby brine, cyclops, ROE Real Oceanic Eggs (though he might be eating these out of the hair algae), and nori (i dont think they really eat the nori, but the pods that tend to congregate on it, pom pom crabs love nori FYI) but he is FAT and happy.

Last week i saw 4 Biota Rainfords at my other LFS in CT. tbh they didn't look as good as mine even when he was stressed on arrival, the tank raised ones were paler and not as active looking. They were eating frozen foods, but if (like me) you have to have one just get a big healthy population of pods going.

What else do you have besides the blenny/clown and how big is the tank?

 

[tranceFusion]

What else do you have besides the blenny/clown and how big is the tank?

Thanks! I have a lot of inverts (cleaner shrimp, Pom Pom crabs, emerald crab, porcelain crab, snails and a bunch of brittle stars). And it is a 25G all-in-one so I don’t really think there’s a lot of room for pods to take off without getting picked over by the fish. I was sort of thinking I would be constantly buying expensive pods to add to the tank if it wouldn’t eat frozen.

 

[Biota_Marine]

I love the appearance of Rainford Gobies but I see they mostly eat pods and algae. My tank has basically no algae and a relatively low pod population. Biota's site says their captive bred should eat prepared foods and I'm wondering if anyone has experience in a similar situation keeping them on Nori and LRS frozen foods or similar? I'd rather not buy a fish that's going to be a gamble and watch it starve.

Also would they be ok with an Ocellaris clown and Tailspot Blenny?

Thanks!

Our Court jesters are super fat and happy and eat pellets and frozen foods. I personally loved court jesters growing up in the hobby but could never keep alive them because of the specific diet but I learned captive-bred they're a completely different fish and thrive in aquariums.

 

[PeterLL]

Our Court jesters are super fat and happy and eat pellets and frozen foods. I personally loved court jesters growing up in the hobby but could never keep alive them because of the specific diet but I learned captive-bred they're a completely different fish and thrive in aquariums.

Hi, sorry to OP to interrupt with an off-topic kinda question.
Do you guys regularly ship to any EU or UK wholesalers or shops in the UK where I would be able to pick one of these guys up from if I asked them to order in?
Thank You so much!

 

[Biota_Marine]

Hi, sorry to OP to interrupt with an off-topic kinda question.
Do you guys regularly ship to any EU or UK wholesalers or shops in the UK where I would be able to pick one of these guys up from if I asked them to order in?
Thank You so much!

Currently working on it! We're in the process of our first export to the UK but we have been shipping to De Jong Marinelife recently who distribute across Europe.

 

[PeterLL]

Oooh I ordered a tank bred Yellow Watchman that came from De jong Marine so I wonder if it is one of yours! Looks like I'll be making a call to the lfs see if he can get dejong to order in a Rainford. Gotta make the lfs earn my money ahaha

 

[Sticker shock]

I have a wild caught Rainsford. I’ve only had him a few weeks but he eats everything he can fit in his mouth. The first week he would not touch anything I added and only picked at rocks and sand. After a week he started sampling the live white worms. And now he gobbles down anything that floats by (Pellets, LRS, frozen oyster, and even flake although he usually just spits out the flake.). He’s very active and nice and fat. Out and about from lights on to lights out, always looking for a treat. As for tank mates he lives with two cinnamon clowns, canary blenny, and a leopard wrasse. No problems at all so far...mostly stays away from the clowns.

 

[DHill6]

I have a Biota court jester, eats LRS frozen and pellets. I’ve only seen it eat algae once but it’s a very heathy clown, always out in the open. BB tank, sparse Tonga branch, it does ok and very colorful. Tank mates are a mandarin, also Biota, and a white Wyoming clown, red urchin and snails. The clown, diva as she is, and the jester are buds, swim and hang out together.

 

[DHill6]

Our Court jesters are super fat and happy and eat pellets and frozen foods. I personally loved court jesters growing up in the hobby but could never keep alive them because of the specific diet but I learned captive-bred they're a completely different fish and thrive in aquariums.

#

Our Court jesters are super fat and happy and eat pellets and frozen foods. I personally loved court jesters growing up in the hobby but could never keep alive them because of the specific diet but I learned captive-bred they're a completely different fish and thrive in aquariums.

Jake, I have one in a BB 34g tank. It’s Biota and doing great although there’s no sand. I also gave a make mandarin, biota, doing great. But... I had ordered 2 trimma gobies and a f mandarin from AGB. Both times fish showed up doa with their mouths open in a very small bag of water, cold. I brought this up to AGB who spoke to You if I’m not mistaken, your name was thrown out there. Amazingly this court jester also had its mouth open in bag of water but once acclimated, survived. It was the only one. My question now is...have you increased the amount of water in which they are shipped? They were shipped to CA.

 

[DHill6]

Phone phonics...should have read male mandarin.

 

[jrill]

I bought a biota jester about two weeks ago. He eats frozen and pellet food greedily. Doing great.

 

[Biota_Marine]

#

Jake, I have one in a BB 34g tank. It’s Biota and doing great although there’s no sand. I also gave a make mandarin, biota, doing great. But... I had ordered 2 trimma gobies and a f mandarin from AGB. Both times fish showed up doa with their mouths open in a very small bag of water, cold. I brought this up to AGB who spoke to You if I’m not mistaken, your name was thrown out there. Amazingly this court jester also had its mouth open in bag of water but once acclimated, survived. It was the only one. My question now is...have you increased the amount of water in which they are shipped? They were shipped to CA.

I'm sorry to hear they didn't make the trip. For AB we usually ship replacements once requested so we would love to have another shot at it. We've learned specifically with the smaller fish like the mandarins and white spotted trimma they ship better in our smaller 4" bags with that small amount of water so there isn't anywhere to get stuck. We also add Seachem's prime to our shipment water so there won't be any ammonia issues during transit which allows us to have a higher volume of oxygen in the bags.

This is the same reason why we only individually pack fish over bulk packaging. Typically in a shipment where there are multiple losses there's either some mishandling or varied temperature swings (mandarins specifically do extremely poorly when subjected to colder temperatures).

We ship this same way for international cargo shipments with a <0.1% DOA rate but those cargo shipments are usually kept in temperature controlled units.

 

[DonDrummond]

I had a biota rainford goby for about two years in a sometimes sand sometimes bare bottom 25 gallon cube. He was blind in one eye but ate anything frozen as well as pellets no problem-- slow eater for sure w a little mouth but his tank mates weren't aggressive. He was fine with a tail spot blenny btw. I'd always wanted one but knew the wild ones had issues eating and I'd always had bigger reefs until recently. Very beautiful cool fish. Great job Biota!

 

[Philly Reefer]

Sorry to hijack this thread .
But will the rainford goby go along with another goby?
I have a Yellow Watchman Goby w/pistol shrimp in a 40 breeder

 

[DHill6]

I'm sorry to hear they didn't make the trip. For AB we usually ship replacements once requested so we would love to have another shot at it. We've learned specifically with the smaller fish like the mandarins and white spotted trimma they ship better in our smaller 4" bags with that small amount of water so there isn't anywhere to get stuck. We also add Seachem's prime to our shipment water so there won't be any ammonia issues during transit which allows us to have a higher volume of oxygen in the bags.

This is the same reason why we only individually pack fish over bulk packaging. Typically in a shipment where there are multiple losses there's either some mishandling or varied temperature swings (mandarins specifically do extremely poorly when subjected to colder temperatures).

We ship this same way for international cargo shipments with a <0.1% DOA rate but those cargo shipments are usually kept in temperature controlled units.

Thanks for the reply. This happened in March, I did request replacements. The mandarin arrived doa on the replacement, she was very tiny, mouth wide open. The Trimmas were never shipped, it was a mess trying to get it straight, three weeks later I had them cancel it. Kept saying fish shipped, no tracking, no fish. I may try once more to see what happens.

 

[DHill6]

Trimmas mentioned above were also replacements. The first set arrived DOA, mouths wide open.

 

[DHill6]

I had a biota rainford goby for about two years in a sometimes sand sometimes bare bottom 25 gallon cube. He was blind in one eye but ate anything frozen as well as pellets no problem-- slow eater for sure w a little mouth but his tank mates weren't aggressive. He was fine with a tail spot blenny btw. I'd always wanted one but knew the wild ones had issues eating and I'd always had bigger reefs until recently. Very beautiful cool fish. Great job Biota!

Good to hear. This one goes for LRS frozen as soon as it hits the water then chases it with a few pellets. It’s an animated fish.

 

[jd371]

Mine's a pig and will eat just about anything. When he's not sifting the sand he eats live black worms and frozen food that I make myself. He knows when it's feeding time and will swim by the surface.

Look at the belly on this guy!