FAMILY

This is a dawnray watchdog goby (Stonogobiops nematodes) and its friend, a Randall’s pistol shrimp (Alpheus randalli). They form a tiny family in a hole in the mud. Of course they can’t have children together. Then again that’s a good thing ’cuz their children would look like weird shrimp-goby-monsters with huge claws that make sonic booms.

Dawnray watchdog gobies live in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in places like Seychelles, Bali, and the Philippines. And you know what? SO DO THE SHRIMP. I wonder why?

It's called a pistol shrimp because, when threatened, it blows a bubble and then pops it with its claw, creating a deafening sound that can be heard from up to six miles away! YAY!

Why is it called a watchdog goby?

Pistol shrimp are almost blind (like me!!!). So they live with the watchdog goby. If the goby senses danger, it warns the shrimp to retreat to their house, which is a tunnel in the mud (there's no accounting for taste, i mean some people live in houses shaped like toilets)

The shrimp builds the tunnel while the goby guards it so the shrimp doesn’t get eaten. I wish my friends were like that

The goby grows to 2.4 inches in length, while the shrimp grows to half that size, 1.2. (IM SO GOOD AT MATH)

My Fish Tank

You may notice, I’m mildly obsessed with fish.

Fine, not mildly.

Behold my 10-gallon hexagon-shaped fish tank that, I admit, is outrageously overstocked. The sand at the bottom is silica sand, and I have a huge piece of mopani driftwood in it and a few different rocks. In the back are some dead leaves, and in the front you can see a seashell that I took out because it was making the pH and dH go crazy and it killed my sensitive Leopold’s freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum leopold), depressingly. :(

Of course, half the fact my angelfish died was because of my EVIL rainbow sharkminnow, but I moved the minnow to a separate tank and he lived there for about a year. Then I moved him back and he became a precious little angel. Cutie.

The plants include lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana), Amazonian swordplant (Echinodorus cordifolius), golden creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia “aurea”), Najas marina, and Java fern (Microsorum pteropus).

Following is a (LONG) list of fish.

Cherry barbs (Pungti titteya) x 2

“GloFish”® blackamoor tetras (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) x 2 (going to move)

Half-banded loach (Pangio semicincta) x 1

Bronze cory (Corydoras aeneus) x 1

Skunk loach (Syncrossus morleti) x 2 (going to move to a 2.5-gallon tank of their own :)

Orange-finned loach (Yasuhikotakia modesta) x 1

Rainbow sharkminnow (Epalzeorhynchos frenatum) x 1 (going to move)

Goldfish (Carassius auratus) x 1 (SORRY!!! Definitely going to move)

Southern platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus) x 1 (going to move)

Ghost shrimp (Palaemontes paludosus) x 3

Hippocampus spinyeel (Mastacembelus circumcinctus) x 1

I’m going to upgrade my tank to a 20-gallon and give my sister the 10.

:) I is good brother.