can a dollar sunfish and bumble bee goby live together with out the goby being eaten?

Isn't the goby a brackish water species?

No. Dollars are too aggressive, bumblebee goby too small. I suppose in a densely planted tank a goby may be able to hide for a bit. Then if you never see the goby, then what's the point of having one?

The paragraph on tank mates from http://aqualandpetsp...blebee Goby.htm has a few suggestions on what can co-habitate with bumblebee gobies.

Mixers. Bumblebee gobies move slow, so leave out the speedy zebras and other zippers. Good candidates include other brackish fishes such as glassfish (Indian), flounders, and dragon gobies. Mollies like the same water but get to the food too fast and stuff their guts while the bees just haven’t quite got the buzz yet.

I had two Dollars for a while before they managed to basically beat each other to death. They were only around 3", but they could easily eat Gambusia. I have seen a similar sized bantam sunfish, a species known for being peaceful and invertivores, grab and slowly devour a blackstripe topminnow. In short, sunfish eat other fish and a bumblebee goby won't stand a chance. Try hogchokers and naked gobies if you're looking for native tankmates.

I had two Dollars for a while before they managed to basically beat each other to death. They were only around 3", but they could easily eat Gambusia. I have seen a similar sized bantam sunfish, a species known for being peaceful and invertivores, grab and slowly devour a blackstripe topminnow. In short, sunfish eat other fish and a bumblebee goby won't stand a chance. Try hogchokers and naked gobies if you're looking for native tankmates.

Where both your suns males?

Gobie McNuggets

I've kept dollars for a few years in groups as many as 6 in a 55 gallon tank, well planted. They don't like each other much, and anything small enough to be food... is. They are aggressive, mean, and feisty little fish that are fantastically showy but like to fight. I've had a hospital tank where the worst off of the bunch got some r'n'r going pretty much non-stop until a few of them died.

They're great fish. They're spunky and scrappy and mean and put on a good show. But anything small enough to fit in their gullet's going there. Anything shaped like a sunfish is automatically a target. The big dog fish will patrol just to keep everyone else out of his territory until the #2 male gets strong enough to challenge. The females are pretty much low on the pecking order as well.

If you have a male and a female, I suspect if they get along really well they may pair up and try to breed, but once the babies are there the female will need to stay away.

What's interesting is they all got along for a few months, until the bigger male felt frisky and started prepping a nest. I think since in my house it's never cold enough to trigger the breeding hormones to stop, that set off the territory war.