Okinawa Goby Fish

Facts abou the Okinawa Goby, it is a bright yellow fish popular in small and large aquariums.

All in a Name

The Okinawa Goby has the scientific name Gobiodon okinawae. The Okinawa Goby is also called the yellow clown goby and yellow coral goby. The Okinawa Goby is part of the Gobiidae or Goby family. The species was identified by R. Arai, T. Abe and Sawada in 1972.

Physical Description

This is a small bright yellow fish, though it has a white patch on each cheek. The Okinawa Goby have seven dorsal spines and ten or eleven dorsal soft rays. The Okinawa Goby have one anal spine and nine anal soft rays. Their maximum size is one and a half inches. Any Okinawa Goby that size is male. Those that switch to female and stay that way regularly stop growing at an inch long.
Their bodies are covered in a poisonous mucus to deter predators.
These Okinawa Goby fish start life as females, but they can change gender throughout their lives. When two of them are paired up, the larger one becomes male. The smaller one in an introduced pair will become female, unless the larger one is already female.

Behavior

These Okinawa Goby fish are not burrowers like most gobies. Instead, they prefer to reside in the branches of staghorn coral. The Okinawa Goby are reef safe, though they will nip at SPS corals.
The Okinawa Goby can be kept in tanks as small as ten gallons. If you want more than one, a thirty gallon aquarium is better. If the tank does not have corral then you need to have more hiding places than fish that want to hide in them.
These Okinawa Goby fish are not aggressive except to protect their territory from members of their own species. The Okinawa Goby seem to be able to recognize keepers and approach when food is offered. The Okinawa Goby also move in a type of fish dance when right above their favorite location.
These Okinawa Goby fish are opportunistic feeders, primarily feeding on mesoplankton. Gobies are mostly predatory and eat meat. Okinawa gobies prefer live food like live brine shrimp, though they will eat frozen brine shrimp and mysis shrimp. The Okinawa Goby can be fed shredded fish, mollusks, squid, clam, and table shrimp pieces. It is recommended that foods like shrimp be fortified with phytoplankton. The Okinawa Goby can be worked into eating flake or pellet food. It is important to make sure that the Okinawa goby is properly fed, because it will be reluctant to challenge larger predators like wrasses for food.
This Okinawa Goby fish can be kept with invertebrates; it won’t try to eat them.
The Okinawa Goby fish should be kept singly or in breeding pairs. The Okinawa Goby lay eggs in the coral branches where they live, where the male will protect them until they hatch five days later. The spawning can actually damage some corals.

Habitat

The Okinawa Goby fish live in the coral reefs of sheltered lagoon across the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. The Okinawa Goby are found at depths of two to fifteen meters. The Okinawa Goby will live in both soft and hard coral. Their ideal environment is the standard salt water aquarium with water between 72F and 78F.

Range

This Okinawa Goby fish is found throughout the western Pacific. The Okinawa Goby is found from the Great Barrier Reef off Australia to southern Japan.

Trivia

The Okinawa Goby fish is sometimes called the Citron goby for its citrus or lemon color.