lawnmower blenny

i was just wondering what your experiences with lawnmower blennies are like? thinking about getting one.

 

Very nice and fun to watch. Picked on the Diamond Goby though.

 

They are pretty cool to watch. if he saw me in front of the tank he would just sit there and look at me.

 

They are cool fish

I have had a few over the years and they all had personality

1 of mine used to sit on the magnetic algae scraper and would stay on it if you slowly cleaned the glass with it ( not for long, but it was fun )

another 1 developed a hatred of a Regal tang (grazing rights) and would periodically chase it about the tank, despite the fact it was 1/3 of the overall size of the Tang,
it would do this twice a week or so and the rest of the time, ignored it

one problem is that they dont seem to bother with any prepared foods, and as such if you dont have a lot of algae - they may eventually starve to death

Steve

 

thanks for the info. they sound like great fish.

 

Cool little fishy...I really like blennies! I agree with Steve though, make sure you have a lot of mature LR with lots of algae for him to forage for. I had one in my previous tank and it never accepted any prepared of frozen foods. Happy Reefing

 

Steve hit it right on the head. I've had two in the past of which I loss both, after the second was lost I said I would not get another. Over all they are some great fish to have if you have lots of algae in your tank. jmtc

 

can you add algea or will they not eat it either.

 

I recall the 2nd one I had would never go anywhere near the Nori strips I put in for the Tang
I also recall that hair algae wasnt its prefered diet (although it did chomp it from time to time)
mine spent most of the day rasping at the rock work, the glass, the plastics etc
its prefered diet was the micro algae that grows on these surfaces
hence I rarely cleaned my side glass, and tended to allow a build up on the front glass for a couple of days or so, in order not to deprive it of available food

Steve

 

shoot! i have one that will be here tomorrow. i do have algea just not a whole lot. i ordered some chromis $0.99 each up to 5 but i didnt have enough spent to ship so the only thing i thought would be a good fish would be the lawnmower blenny being i thought it would be good for cleaning but didnt realize it had to have a whole lot of algea.