When I decided to write this species profile, I thought okay, I have kept this species for many years and studied it well, but I thought I would check out and compare my own knowledge with that of others, and came to this conclusion- Dragon gobies are probably the most misunderstood fish alive….

The Dragon Goby (Gobioides brousonnetti), also known as the Violet Goby, is an elongated purple Goby, which actually originate from Florida and is found mainly in brackish swamps, inlets, and rivers from the Atlantic coast of Georgia to Texas and to the Gulf of Mexico and the northern coast of Brazil.

This fish has 7 dorsal spines and 15-16 soft dorsal rays, one anal spine with a continuous dorsal fin and the dorsal and anal fins joined with caudal fin. Its pectoral fins are also used for getting around on the the bottom of it's habitat. It does not have a swim bladder, no need for one as they sit on the bottom all of the time.

They are not difficult to keep but unfortunately often die since most people who buy them don't know how to properly care for them.

THE RED-THROATED GOBY - Rhinogobius wui is a smaller fish, which occasionally goes by the same name of Dragon goby so maybe this is one of the causes of confusion. Although these too are peaceful, but much smaller fish (females about 2", males about 1.5" at full size) and make ideal inhabitants for a community tank

Since the early days of my fish keeping life I have always had a thing about the odd and unusual or to put it another way, anything with a face only a mother could love, Dragon gobies definitely fall into this category. However, what they lack in the beauty department they make up for in many other ways.

They have a fused pelvic fin, which enables them to attach to aquarium glass, much like the mouth of a plec. They also have a large, trap-door type mouth, like an Arrowana, which is studded with easily visible teeth.

Because of their mouth size many shops and owners alike assume that they are predators and keep them with predatory fish. In fact they have very small eyes in comparison to their bodies, which should tell you that they are mainly scavengers who put forth only minor effort in searching for food.

Their primary method of obtaining food is by scooping up mouthfuls of gravel and sorting the edible things from the substrate, they then spit out the substrate and swallow the food particles.

I have found that frozen plankton, bosmiden, daphnia and bloodworm are all readily accepted foods, and anything else that can fit in its mouth, EXCEPT fish. Brine shrimp is also suitable but I find this is about the largest food they can manage.

As an experiment I did try feeding them with tiny frozen Gammarus shrimp, tiny pieces of frozen fish, they were interested, but quickly spat them back out as they were too big.

I also make a point of keeping cardinals and other tiny fish with them, if only to show people they are not predatory, again they are never interested…

In the wild they have been found to grow to around 24” but in captivity this would be much smaller, most aquarium specimens reaching about 14-15in.

I once read that they had venomous spines down their backs which were extremely toxic to humans if they happened to brush against you, but I must say that I had already kept and handled these fish for many years before I came across this article and never came to any harm so maybe this is just one more inaccuracy concerning this species.

The Violet Goby will mature and thrive best in brackish water -- but they can be acclimatized slowly to fresh water and can also be acclimatized to fully marine conditions.

I have found that although they are primarily found in brackish, alkaline waters, they really are not too fussy about their water at all, they seem to have this ability to adapt to whatever conditions they find themselves in, this I have realized by the amount of water tests I have done over the years.

On many occasions where a customer has handed me a sample of water to test because virtually all fish except their long suffering Dragon has perished, I have found results such as P.H ranges from as low as 5.0 to above 8.5, nitrite above 75mg litre, Hardness at both ends of the scale, nitrates above 100mg litre, and there never seems to be any pattern as to why the Dragon survives, one thing these fish can't tolerate is ammonia, the slightest trace and they start to slime up and gasp at the surface, if the conditions are not rectified very quickly, with that I mean hours not days, the Dragon will quickly die.

I hope this article has proven valuable, and has given the reader a deeper understanding of this strange fish, as I said at the beginning many people have written articles and given their opinion, but from actual experience and study they are mainly misrepresented and I suspect mixed up with other species going by the same common name.

So if oddballs are your passion or maybe you just fancy something a bit different, which won't upset any of your other tank inhabitants, then the Dragon goby is definitely your next purchase………