# BumbleBee Gobies and shrimp?



## IanD

I've always wanted to add some Bumblebee Gobies to my tank, the thing holding me back is that I understand them to be picky feeders only accepting live foods. This wouldn't work for me as I like to go on my holidays for 2-3 weeks. I gave up on the gobies but recently thought about adding cherry red shrimp to the tank once it's more heavily planted. In theory would the gobies be able to survive off shrimp fry for a couple of weeks? I'm thinking that i'd need to heavily plant the tank to give the shrimp any chance of avoiding extinction, especially with the fish allready living there.

I have a 55gal tank, not heavily planted but slowly getting there. For hardscape just bog wood. Current occupants are an ancistrus, 9 rainbowfish, 2 kribensis and some snails.

I'm thinking that once the plants are dense enough I could add enough shrimp to seed a population. If the population of shrimp manages to grow then I can add the gobies. Any thoughts?


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## BigTom

You're right in that they will almost certainly only ever take live foods.

I've got a group of bumblebees which used to be in a 25 litre nano with some shrimp.... they instantly munched on all the juveniles, and then would gang up and kill the adults when they were vulnerable after moulting. I've since moved them to my 240 litre community tank which has a healthy shrimp population and everything seems much more stable. I ran out of live foods for several weeks over the winter and they seemed to do fine on what they could catch. However, my tank is extremely heavily planted (90% plant coverage on a 3'x3' footprint). You'll need to give the shrimp a lot of hiding places if you want them to survive and breed, especially as your kribs and probably rainbowfish will also be hunting them heavily. In fact, I'd say the kribs could prove a pretty major hurdle in this plan. 

_Hyallela azteca_ would be another good addition, they're tough little blighters and small enough to hide and breed in coarse sponge if you can hide a block somewhere (perhaps covered in ferns and moss). Gobies love them.

Do you have someone feed your fish while you're on holiday, or use an automated timer? If the former, then something like microworms would be easy to have someone feed the tank without disasters.


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## Gill

A tip with the Gammarus, Ask at your LFS. As I always found them in the outdoor coldwater filter boxes and pond plant tubs.


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## IanD

Thanks Tom & Gill. I use an auto feeder with a neighbour as back up in case things go wrong. I think i'll try the cherry red shrimp vs. kribensis once the tank has filled up with plants, if it's not a total slaughter then I might give the gobies a go. 

Not so sure about the gammarus.. they look like ugly little buggers.


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## BigTom

IanD said:


> Thanks Tom & Gill. I use an auto feeder with a neighbour as back up in case things go wrong. I think i'll try the cherry red shrimp vs. kribensis once the tank has filled up with plants, if it's not a total slaughter then I might give the gobies a go.
> 
> Not so sure about the gammarus.. they look like ugly little buggers.


 
Even if your neighbour only popped in and fed them some live foods once a week they'd OK for a while.

The _Hyallela_ aren't terribly pretty, but then you don't see them much; any that break cover during the day promptly get eaten


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## 4192362

I've had success feeding Bumblebee Gobys normal flake and pellet food, they were on live foods 3 times a week but then slowly weaned onto dry food. 

They occasionally have live bloodworm and once a week frozen bloodworm, they will eat dry food if they are hungry enough. I've had mine 4 years and they are very healthy and coloured up.

Do NOT put them with cherrys, they have big mouths and will eat baby shrimp and harass larger shrimp until they die.


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