Buying some fishies! Clingfish, blennies, oh my!

kitkat717

kitkat717

New member
So LiveAquaria has some clingfish for sale on DD. I am thinking I'm going to buy one. They are chubby and adorable and I know nothing about them, but I'm thinking I'm gonna pull the trigger and try it out.

Anyone ever had one? They are "Caribbean Red Clingfish". They don't look particularly red.

I'm thinking about adding a blenny to the order. Either a twin spot bimaculous or a tailspot. Any opinions on the two of them? I certainly have some hair algae I'd love them to (but doubt they will) mow on. I've just always wanted one, and where better to buy one than DD?

Opinions?
 
I researched clingfish awhile back and asked some people. Essentially, treat them like gobies. They may refuse all but live foods at first, but they should learn to eat frozen. Very rarely seen in the hobby, so if you get one/some (I don't know if they're territorial), let us know how things turn out.
 
Well, they are DD so they must be eating something.

I did google the crap out of them, nothing particularly useful came up.
 
Twinspot gobies are very difficult to maintain in an aquarium. They're sand sifters and almost always starve because they will not accept prepared food. One person on here claimed to have gotten them to eat live worms, but I don't know what his long-term success was. Feeding live worms is a mess and a grind.

Tailspots are a much better bet. They're usually easy to feed with frozen and pellets. They will have a go at your algae, too. Plus they're adorable. A great fit for a tank your size. You will have to cover your tank with netting because they're known to jump.
 
rssjsb said:
Twinspot gobies are very difficult to maintain in an aquarium. They're sand sifters and almost always starve because they will not accept prepared food. One person on here claimed to have gotten them to eat live worms, but I don't know what his long-term success was. Feeding live worms is a mess and a grind.
Click to expand...

While true that twinspot gobies are difficult to keep, I believe the OP was asking about the two spot blenny, Ecsenius bimaculatus, whose care is near identical that of E. stigmatura, so on either of those it really is a matter of preference of appearance. Personally, I prefer E. stigmatura.

As far as clingfish go, I have tried them on a couple of occasions. Mine always ended up in the overflow within the first week, and when they are in the tank nearly impossible to see except in very small tanks.
 
eatbreakfast said:
While true that twinspot gobies are difficult to keep, I believe the OP was asking about the two spot blenny, Ecsenius bimaculatus, whose care is near identical that of E. stigmatura, so on either of those it really is a matter of preference of appearance. Personally, I prefer E. stigmatura.
Click to expand...
You are right, of course. I misread the post. I still like the tailspot better, but either would work.

Interesting about the clingfish. I have come close to pulling the trigger on captive bred specimens that turn up occasionally on DD. But I've always hesitated based on similar reports that they are cryptic. I already have a golden angel if I want to play "where's waldo" in my tank. This is the only reason my current downsized tank does not include a possum wrasse, pink streaked wrasse, or starry blenny, even though I like them all very much.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I ended up pulling the trigger.

I saw the two spot dive into the rocks never to be seen again. The clingfish is pretty easy to spot behind the rocks, but I haven't specifically seen it eat anything yet.

We shall see what happens.
 
I got some kind of clingfish a while ago. He is in the sump 'clinging' on the wall at the water surface, and completely recognizes me when I am nearby. He will kinda jump around making noise trying to get me to feed him. I just drop some pellets/krill/mysis on him and he will jump to get it as it falls to the surface of the water. I suspect he would eat anything that fits his mouth and gets too close.
 
Update!

They're still alive. The clingfish was showing some obvious hunting behavior for some mysis today and definitely got a few bites. I offered some hand fed but he ran after I got within a few inches. Didn't seem particularly afraid though. He's not yet as aggressive as the clowns, but he'll probably get there.

Had my first sighting of the two spot today. Looks fat and healthy, so he must be eating algae and bits of food that went into the rocks. The clowns are too curious about him for his comfort I think, but he doesn't seem particularly stressed.

My lady clown is quite aggressive towards the clingfish, but thus far he hasn't responded at all to her, which I think upsets her. She'll live.
 
So he doesn't care about aggression? What kind of aggression? Just displays, or nips? I want one, but I have a blue damsel who can be a little butt. If a clingfish would just ignore him, that might work...
 
Ugh I hate damsels for that reason. Yeah she shoots up to him and displays all tough and he just sort of turns his back on her. She's taken a few nips at him. Sometimes he scoots half an inch, sometimes he just ignores her all together. He seems to mostly just rotate his back to her and she swims around all flustered and mad that he is in her corner. Meanwhile boy clown is all happy dance I love you! I love you don't be mad! I love you!
 
I actually like this damsel... he's cute. It's not his fault he's territorial, hence why I'm keeping him- I don't want him to end up being used to cycle a tank or something.
The LFS near me occasionally has clingfish. They aren't this kind, they're brown and are a little bit larger. If the little guys don't react to aggression, one of the larger guys should work out well, I suppose.
Any idea if yours is eating algae? There isn't much info on them, so I'm not sure if the rock-clinging is just for camo or if they eat algae as a significant part of their diet.
Basically I'm just hoping the larger brown ones are near-identical in care to your variety, because I really want one but I can't find much of anything on them.
 
Yeah mine sure doesn't seem to be eating algae, and definitely hunted the mysis, so I'm thinking it's gonna be useless for algae.

The two spot, on the other hand, darts out of the rocks to take mouthfuls of algae off the back wall on a regular basis.

Good luck with yours! I wish my LFSs had cool random stuff like clingfish. Mine is about 2.5" long. I could see it being annoyed by the damsel and staying out of its territory, but I doubt it would cause much stress. I might just have a bullheaded one though, who knows.

I say go for it! Let me know how it goes!
 
Clingfish is now eating from my hand like my other fish.

Bimaculatus blenny has been MIA for almost 2 weeks now.
 
Do you still have the Caribbean Red Clingfish? If so, how is it doing? I was thinking about getting one.

Thanks,
Jim
 
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