Spotted Shrimp Goby

About

The black-chest shrimp-goby (Amblyeleotris guttata) is one of those species that makes you stop and watch the tank for far longer than you planned. Found across a broad sweep of the Western Pacific, from the Philippines east to Tonga, north to the Ryukyu Islands, and south to Australian waters, it lives on coarse carbonate sand slopes of lagoon and seaward reefs, typically in fairly shallow water but down to around 25 meters. Its cream body is dotted with orange-red spots, and there's a distinctive dark blotch across the chest that gives it the common name. In the wild and in aquaria, this goby enters into one of the reef's most charming partnerships: it shares a burrow with an alpheid pistol shrimp, which does the excavating while the goby stands guard at the entrance, scanning for danger and flicking its body to alert the nearly sightless shrimp when a threat appears. A sand bed and a pistol shrimp companion are both strongly recommended to bring out natural behavior. Peaceful with tankmates, it won't cause trouble in a community reef setup, though it may squabble mildly with other gobies of similar build. This is an intermediate-level fish. Not difficult, but it needs a stable, mature reef to really settle in.