Empire gudgeon

Hypseleotris compressa

FreshwaterFish

Care at a glance

Temperature: 68–95°F (20–35°C)
pH: 6.5–7.5
Adult size: 4.7 in (12 cm)
Minimum tank: 26 gal (100 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Middle
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Very rare
Origin: Australia, New Guinea
Family: Eleotridae

Overview

The empire gudgeon is a peaceful open-water fish that shows its best red and orange colors when kept as a group, where the males display to one another rather than fight. It hovers in the middle of the tank more than most gobies and gets along with similarly sized, calm companions, though it will eat very small fish and shrimp that fit in its mouth. It tends to ignore dry flake, so offer small frozen and live foods like bloodworms, daphnia, and brine shrimp to keep it in good condition. Give it open swimming room with planted edges and some driftwood to break up sight lines. A tank of 100 liters or larger suits a small group.

In the wild

Empire gudgeons range across the coastal rivers, streams, and floodplain lagoons of northern and eastern Australia and southern New Guinea, often in slow, warm lowland water. They are very adaptable to temperature and cope with anything from cool subtropical spells to hot tropical shallows, roughly 20 to 35 °C, and prefer neutral water around pH 6.5 to 7.5. A planted tank with driftwood, leaf litter, and gentle flow suits them, along with open midwater for swimming. Slightly hard, clean water helps keep their colors strong.

Good to know

The empire gudgeon sits in Eleotridae, the sleeper goby family, and grows to about 12 cm. Sleepers look much like true gobies, but their pelvic fins stay separate rather than fusing into a suction disc, which is the simplest way to tell the two families apart. Breeding is very rarely seen in tanks because of its amphidromous life cycle: a male guards a large batch of tiny eggs laid on a firm surface, and the newly hatched larvae drift to brackish or marine water to develop before returning upriver. This complex early stage is why home breeding is essentially unrecorded.

Did you know

Male empire gudgeons are fairly plain for much of the year, but when they are ready to spawn they flush into bright red, orange, and yellow, one of the bigger seasonal color changes among Australian native freshwater fish.