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Reef Fish Guide designation and why
Take it home
Blennies tend to be long-lived and healthy fish with a high survivability. Because of their small size, they are suitable for tanks, even small ones. As a solitary fish it will spend most of its time “hopping” and perching on rocks in the tank. Specifics are not known about the exact population size but blennies do breed often and throughout the year. Captive breeding is in the process but for now it is thought that theses blennies are a sustainable choice for an aquarium.
Distribution
Indo Pacific, Western Pacific, South China Sea, and Tropical Western Atlantic. These fish live on tropical reefs and hiding among the rocks and coral near the bottom.
Maximum Size
4 inches (10 cm)
Care Requirements
Minimum tank size is from 15 to 20 gallons. Blennies are small fish and although they may not need tons of room, they do require a reef tank with lots of live rock for hiding and hunting as well as a matured microalgae growth for feeding.
Food: Most blennies are omnivorous and primarily bottom dwellers in the wild. They tend to feed on benthic organisms, both algae and invertebrates. Some blennies scrape algae off coral and rocks and in the process may be feeding on small organisms that live in association with the algae. In captivity blennies will require a diet rich in vegetable matter. The best scenario would be to have a well-established tank rich with algae for the blennies to graze. In the absence of such resources, feed this fish frozen and dried foods containing marine algae. It may be necessarily to supplement their diet with nori or spirulina algae, but a tank without a crop of microalgae may be deadly for a blenny.
Compatibility: These blennies are mostly non-aggressive and tend to spend most of their time perching on or picking at the substrate. They are usually ignored by tankmates and are non-predatory. It is recommended that an aquarium owner keep one blenny per tank (unless male-female pair) as they may behave aggressively toward members of their own species, closely related forms, or smaller bottom-dwelling species. Because blennies feed by eating algae, they may nip at some stony corals or clam mantles.
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