Golden spot goby

Stiphodon rutilaureus

Also known as Rutilaureus neon goby

FreshwaterFish

Golden spot goby (Stiphodon rutilaureus) — The Wet Spot Tropical Fish · Used with permission

Care at a glance

Temperature: 73–81°F (23–27°C)
pH: 6.5–7.8
Adult size: 1.8 in (4.5 cm)
Minimum tank: 14 gal (54 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Difficult
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: New Guinea and Solomon streams
Family: Oxudercidae

Overview

This is a gilded algae-grazing river goby, a peaceful bottom dweller that passes the day scraping film from stone. It likes company; keep a small group over rounded, film-covered cobbles, giving males a little room to hold grazing patches and show their warm gold flanks. It needs a mature, well-lit tank where biofilm and soft algae grow, since flake food alone will not sustain it; add algae wafers and the odd frozen cyclops. Give it steady flow and high oxygen, and keep only small, calm tankmates that cannot out-compete it. A 54 liter tank matured enough to grow algae is the right home for a group.

In the wild

In the wild it holds clear, current-swept island streams from New Guinea to the Solomon Islands, grazing stone in warm, bright, oxygen-rich water. To copy that, keep a shallow, stony tank with steady flow, strong light to feed the algae film, and clean water changed often. Maintain 23 to 27 C and a pH from slightly acidic to slightly alkaline, about 6.5 to 7.8; its larvae drift to sea before the young return upstream to mature.

Good to know

Stiphodon rutilaureus, sometimes called the golden-red stiphodon, is a member of the family Oxudercidae, described by Watson in 1996. It is a small goby, up to about 4.5 centimeters, and males glow in warm gold. Like all Stiphodon it is a dedicated algae grazer with spatula-shaped teeth, and it is amphidromous with marine larvae, so there is no practical record of it being bred in the aquarium.

Did you know

Its name piles up the shine: rutilaureus joins rutilus, a glowing reddish gold, with aureus, plain gold, as if a single Latin word for golden were not enough for the male's coloring.