Lawnmower Blenny - my newest addition

So I got this guy to help combat my hair algae bloom, although he's not eating it and prefers green algae and coralline instead, he's still a really cool fish, and HUGE! The lfs told me they don't necessarily eat hair algae, especially if it's long, mine's not long but he still doesn't like it. Once I saw him take a bite and spit it out! I finally got him to pose for this pic.

 

Awesome pic!!!!!!
I love it!

-fritts

 

Nice fish.....I am partial to LBs. Have one myself. I do have a few questions though. How big is your tank and how strong is your current cleanup crew?

 

It's a 75gal tank, I have 1 skunk shrimp, approx 20 red legged crabs, 15 margarita snails, 1 or 2 astria snails, and currently two turbo snails that I moved over from the other tank because of the hair algae. Do you think he'll eventually starve because of the cleanup crew? I have another tank that doesn't have enough of a cleanup crew so I can always move some over if I have to...

 

It would be hard to tell. Mine likes to eat cyano and brown algae. I dont have much of either, and no cyano anymore, but I was lucky enough to get one that loves every single type of prepared food I put in the tank
He may eat the hair algae. There diets are described as "filamentous algae". But just keep in mind that a lot of these have very specific, difficult eating requirements and therefore end up having a low succes rate in tanks. Think of them as being like a vegitarian mandarin.

 

Lol wonderful, after reading about them and seeing "very hardy" all the time I figured it wouldn't be as hard to take care of as a mandarin! He has been eating the cyano that I have which I forgot to mention. I hope it learned to eat prepared food while living at the lfs, if so it might do ok since I use the same food they do (spectrum).

Does yours eat any coralline? Mine seems to eat around it most of the time but sometimes I think does not care what it is.

 

No, mine does not eat coraline. Honestly, I doubt yours is actually eating any either. With the jaw and tooth structure that blenny's have, I dont think it would even be possible. He is most likely just picking at the rock around it.
If it helps any, mine really likes frozen mysis, a frozen mysis/brine/spirulina blend, frozen fish and reef #2 (veggie), and some form of dried seaweed sheets, I forget which kind exactly I can look when I get home. He also likes broccoli but has trouble actually biting/tearing peices off of it.

 

Hey! congratulations! Fantastic addition! My blenny is one of the most amusing fish! He's always afraid of my girlfriend. Comes out when I'm around




K+!

 

When I first noticed what I thought was him eating coralline I googled it and came to the conclusion that they can eat coralline but they don't prefer it as it's not filamentous algae but they will eat it if there's nothing else, and in this tank's case, there is plenty of other stuff to eat. I took a couple pics of what I think are obvious coralline snacking spots.

First pic in the middle the light pink coralline you can see his gouges in it and above it there some darker red spots it looks like he's scraped a bit.


This rock here was solid maroon color, it didn't have the white speckled areas before.

 

Camilsky your pics are always so awesome! Last night I had a dream that we went to the lfs and for some reason they were selling cameras super cheap, I bought a Canon 40D with a huge telephoto lens for $104 lol