Texas Gulf Coast Fishing

Violet Goby

VIOLET GOBY Gobioides broussonnetii

It is native to brackish waters near the Atlantic coast of North and South America. Its commercial trade name is Dragon Goby or Dragon Fish in the Aquarium Industry. It is often sold as a "highly aggressive" fish, but violet gobies are actually quite docile, and nearly blind.

Description: They are the largest goby in the Caribbean. The Violet goby has a long, slender, eel-like body. Its dorsal and anal fins run almost the entire length of the body. The teeth are very sharp; however these are used for scraping algae off rocks, not fighting. When kept in good condition, dragon gobies develop an attractive, iridescent, silvery-blue metallic color with a gold blotch pattern. In the wild, violet gobies can grow to 24 inches long. However, in captivity they seldom grow past 15 inches.
Habitat: Violet gobies usually inhabit brackish swamps, streams, and estuaries with a muddy substrate. They can also be found offshore on muddy bottoms and off the mouths of large rivers. Violet gobies have very small eyes, and as such are primarily scavengers. Their key method of obtaining food is by scooping up mouthfuls of gravel and sorting edible material from the substrate, and then spitting out the substrate and swallowing the food particles. They also use their highly specialized teeth to scrape algae off of rocks. They are limited by two factors, their small throat size and very poor vision. Despite having huge tooth-filled mouths, these fish actually have very small throats and this limits the kinds of foods they eat.