Aggressive Sailfin Blenny

[ShilohPSU]

My sailfin blenny was a peaceful reef fish for the first few months. The fish recently started to bite things that never interested him before. He bites the mantle of my crocea clam to the point that it closes it's shell. As soon as the clam starts to come out, he attacks it, and so the clam is unhappy. He also bites the spines of my long spines urchin. Anyone else ever have similar problems with sailfin blennies? Or did I just get an a-hole one? I really like the fish, but not enough to let him kill a clam that I've grown over the last 3 years...

 

[grimlykindo]

blennys are known to nip at clams. It also sounds like your blenny might not be getting all the food/nutrition that he needs and its searching for it in the tank. Do you have alot of algae for him to eat? I would suggest trying to feed him some nori sheets to curb his appetite.

 

[ShilohPSU]

I feed the tank flakes and pellets in the morning. Then I fed them a cube of marine cuisine in the afternoon. Sometimes I put a cube of emerald marine (algae based). There is plenty of green algae that grows on my glass and u can see his bite marks. And there's still plenty left for him to eat. He eats all the food that I mentioned every day and I've used this combo of food for years. He is fat and happy. My old lawnmover blenny was the same way with eating, but never bothered the clam or coral. I'm just wondering why the sailfin blenny started to bother the clam months after I got him and not right from the begining.

 

[jjk_reef00]

I've heard this before, some people have even had problems with them and sps coral. I had one for a while and it bite just about anything in the tank.

 

[Kahuna Tuna]

I had a lawnmower blenny who started nipping fish and eventually killed an asfur angel through a related infection. I would get rid of it since it is unlikely to stop.