Red Spotted Scooter Bleeny - help

I am new to the hobby and I am still learning about fish. My LFS assured me that this blenny was an algae eater and was easy to keep...I trusted them and I bought it.

I got home and started reading up on my new friend. It says it's a carnivore and it is more like the mandarian dragonet, likes to eat pods and is hard to keep.

My tank is fairly new so I don't have any pods that I am aware of. I have seen the bleeny sift the sand a lot and picks at the rocks. I have also seen it eat some frozen shrimp...but doesn't seem to really go after it...I've had him about a week now and he seems just fine....I am worried though that he doesn't have enough to eat. Anybody have experience with these fish and what I should try feeding him? He's super cool and has tons of personality so I'd love to keep him.

 

Keep an eye on. If he starts to get visibly thinner. Get him back to LFS and trade in ASAP.

 

Another classic case of the irresponsible LFS saying anything to make a sale. Sorry buddy! You could try putting some frozen brine in a cup and putting that on the sand to see if he'll go in and eat it. I've seen people have success with that before. I wouldn't recommend going back to that LFS, not for advise anyways.

 

: : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : :

they have stuff that will help and i agree with brandon
try
Aquarium Fish: Tropical Freshwater Fish and Saltwater Fish for Home Aquariums

they have always been helpfull

 

I also bought one from a LFS with the wrong info. At the time I did not have enough pods to support anything that eats them. Mine loves brine shrimp and will activly hunt it down. i have had him for about 3 months and he has gotten bigger. I did notice however that the first week I had him he did not want to eat very much. He is fine now. Good luck!

 

So far so good....He seems to be eating the frozen food and I haven't noticed any physical changes....Hopefully he'll be OK....

Thanks for the replies...

 

For those of you who are feeding frozen or live brine shrimp to your dragonettes, you will need to soak it in a product such as Selcon for a few hours before feeding to enrich it because adult brine shrimp have little to no nutritional value and will not sustain your dragonette for more than a few months. In the alternative, switch to feeding frozen mysis shrimp instead of brine.

 

The best advice and in all fairness is to research before purchasing. Impulse buying without knowledge in this area is not a good idea. I have learned to listen to only half of what the LFS says. I research on the internet prior and take combined knowledge to make a decision. Works a lot better that way. After all, this is not a cheap hobby so you have to treat like an investment.

 

Also, I have had two scotter blennies, one regular and then a red one. I found that they would last for a couple months and then disappeared. They are very cute and have lots of personality, but even in my tank that had been set up a year and a half, they still couldn't get enough to eat, I guess. One thing I found that supposedly maintains a lot of copiopods, which is their fav, is sea grapes. I purchased a couple small stalks one time and my fish loved it. So, the next time, I purchased more and it ended up floating all over my tank and made me have this huge algae outbreak, so beware!

 

I agree with the frozen mysis shrimp -- if he's eating frozen food already thats a GREAT sign as not all of them will. Another option could be a brine shrimp hatchery, kind of a pain and a little ugly to look at in my opinion but the problem I had when I had a mandarin was all the other fish hung out in front of the hatchery and ate them before they got out and down to the bottom of the tank for the mandarin and I didn't have the pod population at the time.

The trait to have in the hobby is patience but it's not always that easy.