How to Identify a Cleaning Goby Fish

Video Transcript

"The marine organism we are going to identify now, is the cleaning goby. One of the most common cleaning fish one will find on a coral reef in the Caribbean is the cleaning goby. But the gleaning goby has not been reported in the waters around Florida. It is a small fish, only about an inch to an inch and three quarters in length. It is a long cigar shape fish. So, its maximum birth is no more than a quarter of an inch in most specimens. Cleaning gobies are hard to differentiate from a similarly colored and similarly sized shark nose goby. Both fish have a bright yellow "V" on their nose, although the shark nose can have a white "V". The difference between the two is that the cleaning goby's yellow "V" fades in to a pale stripe as it progresses towards the tail. Whereas the shark nose has the "V" continue to the tail, either as a continuation of the yellow color or as a bright blue stripe. A shark nose goby with a white "V" on its nose will have the white color continue as a white stripe to the tail. The rest of the cleaning goby is black over most of its body although the belly is light colored, white or whitish blue. Cleaning gobies are usually found resting on the top of coral heads and usually in small groups. Theses congregations of cleaning gobies form the cleaning stations that are visited by other larger fish. When a larger fish approaches, it will hover over the cleaning station and the cleaning gobies go to work by working their way across the visitor's body, eating the active parasites that accumulate on the body of these fishes. These active parasites probably make up the majority of the cleaning gobies diet. One thing I like to do when I find one of the cleaning goby cleaning stations, is to slowly extend my hand to the area just above the living coral where the cleaning gobies reside, and hold it stationery for a minute or so. Most of the time the cleaning gobies will swim to my hand and start to swim over it, cleaning away dead skin and any other things they find that they think shouldn't be there. It is a funny feeling when they do it, because they are so small and like it kind of tickles as they move across your hand, between your fingers and stop to tuck at some little bit of loose skin. Cleaning gobies are a monogamous fish, meaning they mate with the same fish regularly. Eggs are laid on the sub straight, usually on a ledge, and the male generally guards the egg mass. Eggs hatched in a few days and the fry drift with the current until they are large enough to take up residence on their own coral head. I have seen some cleaning stations with six or eight cleaning gobies on it of various sizes, and I often wondered if it was a family business. I'll never know for certain. That's the cleaning goby."