Da** clown gobies!

I thought I knew what I was doing when I added 2 yellow gobies to my tank. I got them from the Weimers. I thought, "I know they will sit in the corals but it can't be too bad." Boy was I wrong.

My 2 gobies go through every single acro in the tank and wiggle in it and mouth the polyps until they are all closed up, then they move to the next one and so on and on.

At this point, I have no polyp extension on many of my acros, where as prior to adding those @%$* gobies, every acro had outstanding extension.

My questions are....

1. Will the acros eventually become accustomed to the harrasment and start extending polyps when the gobies leave?

2. Should I try to get rid of the gobies?

3. What are others experiences with these little guys and did I make a mistake in adding them?

Well here are my answers (guesses )...
1) No
2) No
3) Fair, good move

Adam

Ok - I've had it with them.  All of my SPS are closed up and I think some are starting to die.  I read about them on reef central and they said to try siphoning them out at night.  That didn't work. 

I've stood there with a net for hours - no luck.  They are smart.  CoreyK said to starve my tank for a week and then trap them (remember the trap Corey).  Do you think a week is too long for the other fish.  It seems like a long time to go without food.

Mark - the third Goby is in my nano and the office and doing fine.  Amie if I catch them - you get one.

This tank stuff - why do we get into these things?  Shane H. has clown gobies and his corals look awesome.  Why oh why can't I (sounds like a song )

Funny story -

As you know, I have been trying unsuccessfully go catch this last goby.  I have 7-8 corals in my frag tank in "time out" because they lost all their polyps and browned out.  We tried starving him and trapping him, no luck.  Catching them with a net, no luck,  Using the syphon tube, no luck,

So..last night Fred decided we should try the shop vac.  "Ok" I said.  We made some new saltwater, got the shop vac and I aimed the hose right at the goby.  "Go" I said.  He turned it on and the goby swam away.  So I said "Stop"

I'm standing there with the vacuum hose in the tank when all of a sudden, water gushes out of the vacuum and all over the floor.  "What's going on" I yell.  "You create a syphon Fred says and your syphoning water."

Duh, why didn't I think of that.  So...we were up late cleaning up Salt Water!   Still, no goby! 

Sorry to hear about your back syphoning problem.  Good thing you own a shopvac so you could clean up that mess.

Here's an idea for a trap that I would like someone to tell me if it would work or not.  What if you put a sealed plastic box in your tank (much like the traps), but kept the door on so no water could get into it.  Then, point the door towards the fish you want to catch and pull the door off quickly.  Wouldn't he get sucked into the box?  I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work for Susan, but I have a friendlier percula that I am trying to catch and he's always just out of my reach.

I might try syphoning him down to my refugium, that's a great idea.

The fish would probably be sucked into the container like you are thinking. But the problem would be getting the open container out of the tank with the fish inside. Fish are very fast and it would probably just swim out of the container.

I am now a big fan of a siphon to remove problem fish. This was very easy and fast.

Susan, did you ever catch that last goby or has he settled down?

Mike