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Diamond Goby
Goby

Diamond Goby

Valenciennea puellaris

A pearly white goby speckled with orange spots that spends all day scooping mouthfuls of sand and sifting them through its gills — a genuinely useful, oxygenating substrate cleaner. It is peaceful and invert-safe, but it is an obligate sifter: it needs a deep, mature live sand bed and frequent feeding, or it slowly starves once it has mined the sand out. It also rearranges the bottom and can shower low corals with sand, so anchor rockwork on the glass and place frags high.

Temperament
Peaceful
Max size
5.9"
Min tank
30 gal
Reef-safe
Reef safe
Diet
Carnivore
Zone
Sand bed, Bottom
Keep one or a bonded pair.
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Tankmates

How Diamond Goby gets on with the rest of the reef, checked pair by pair by the same engine as the live pre-flight.

Best kept apart

A real clash — aggression, predation or a same-genus fight.

Purple TangPurple Tang (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Picasso TriggerfishPicasso Triggerfish (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Twinspot GobyTwo sand-sifting gobies contest the same patch of sand bed and strip its microfauna twice as fast, which pushes both toward starvation. The diamond goby is also territorial around its own burrow.Pearly JawfishThe diamond goby continually excavates and dumps sand, burying the jawfish's burrow, and it gets territorial about the sand it has claimed. Care guides name jawfish specifically as a tankmate to avoid.Sleeper Banded GobyValenciennea vs Amblygobius sand-sifters compete for the same sandbed; diamond gobies turn territorial toward other bottom-dwelling gobies, so friction is likely in tanks without a large mature sandbed.Volitans LionfishVolitans Lionfish has a big enough mouth to eat the much smaller Diamond Goby.Snowflake MoraySnowflake Moray has a big enough mouth to eat the much smaller Diamond Goby.Zebra MorayZebra Moray has a big enough mouth to eat the much smaller Diamond Goby.Chainlink MorayChainlink Moray has a big enough mouth to eat the much smaller Diamond Goby.Rectangle TriggerfishRectangle Triggerfish (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Clown TriggerfishClown Triggerfish (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Miniata GrouperMiniata Grouper (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Panther GrouperPanther Grouper (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Lunare WrasseLunare Wrasse (aggressive) is much larger than the peaceful Diamond Goby and may harass it.Spanish HogfishSpanish Hogfish has a big enough mouth to eat the much smaller Diamond Goby.Sixspot Sleeper GobyDiamond Goby and Sixspot Sleeper Goby are the same genus (Valenciennea) and will fight — keep only one.