The bright color of the yellow clown goby has been winning over a large number people within the fish keeping community recently and with people trying to color match their tanks these days, we have seen a spike in people trying to add their yellow clown goby to their reef tank.
Due to people putting a huge amount of time and effort into their reef tank setups, we have also noticed more and more people reaching out to ask if the yellow clown goby is reef safe or not.
With corals and anemones take a large amount of time and effort to keep, we wanted to publish this dedicated article going over how reef safe a yellow clown goby actually is to try and help as any of our readers as possible.
Are Yellow Coral Goby Reef Safe?
The goby fish is a species that is known to be peaceful and not overly aggressive which is one of the reasons why they have become so popular in home aquarium setups.
While their behavior is mostly peaceful, there are still some instances where problems can occur between gobies and other tank mates, but these are usually due to territorial disputes rather than anything else.
When it comes to their reef compatibility, yellow clown gobies are generally considered to be safe to keep with most corals and anemones.
That said though, yellow clown goby do tend to enjoy eating SPS polyps and they are usually not recommended for a tank that has SPS corals in it.
Will A Yellow Clown Goby Eat Coral?
One of the main questions people tend to have about keeping a yellow clown goby in their reef tank is whether or not they will eat coral.
The answer to this question is that it really depends on the goby and some will nibble on coral while others will completely ignore it.
The majority of yellow clown gobies do tend to eat SPS polyps no matter what you do so if you are planning on keeping SPS corals in your aquarium, we would usually recommend against having a yellow clown goby as a tank mate for the coral.
A small number of yellow clown gobies will also nibble on other types of coral too but it does tend to be rare and in most cases, they will only usually eat SPS corals.
Most people are actually surprised by just how many polyps a single, tiny yellow clown goby is able to eat in a reef tank.
There are a few things that you can do to try and discourage your goby from eating coral though, such as feeding them a variety of foods so that they are not as hungry and adding more live rock to the tank for them to explore.
If you do decide to add a yellow clown goby to your reef tank, it is always a good idea to keep a close eye on them at first to make sure that they are not causing any problems with the coral.
Will A Yellow Clown Goby Eat Anemones?
While yellow clown gobies will mostly leave anemones alone, there are a small number of cases where they have been known to eat anemones.
This usually only happens when the goby is very hungry but it can still be a problem if you have anemones in your reef tank.
The best way to stop your goby from eating anemones is to make sure that they are well-fed and that there is plenty of live rock for them to explore.
When it comes to anemones, you also have to factor in if your anemone will eat your yellow clown goby and in some cases they will.
Thankfully though, most yellow clown gobies know better than to get too close to an anemone so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem for the majority of our readers.
Will A Yellow Clown Goby Eat Nudibranchs?
No, yellow clown gobies will not eat nudibranchs.
While they may nibble on them if they are very hungry, they will not actually eat them and there is no need to worry about them becoming a meal for your goby.
Still, the sample size of people keeping nudibranchs in the same tank as yellow clown gobies is small so as more and more people start to pair these up in the same tank, this may change as more reports from other people keeping reef tanks start to share their experiences.
