Elacatinus oceanops - T.B.

Elacatinus oceanops, commonly known as the Neon goby, is a small reef-dwelling goby. The Genus Elacatinus are all small fancy coloured gobies which also have a symbiotic relationship with large fish because they act as cleaner fish. This helps the large fish getting rid of the ectoparasites and get the goby's belly filled with their main food source, parasites. E. oceanops being on of the most beautiful from the family. They've a white belly and a horizontal black stripe from the mouth all the way into the caudal fin and another one from the head all the way over the back to the caudal base. In between the body is brilliant blue.

These fish can't really clean an ich outbreak, but are able to help keeping fish parasite-free to prevent outbreaks and thus should never used as a solution and only as preventive measure. Sometimes the constant cleaning can stress a fish, but usually this causes no problems and only helps the fish. Keeping oceanops well fed will probably help to prevent it from contantly cleaning in the first place. They also don't need large fish and can live in a nano tank as well, but you do need to make sure it can eat multiple times a day or even better only place them in a tank with enough zooplankton.

This fish is Tank Bred and will adapt to your aquarium easier compared to a wild caught specimen!