Dangerous Reef Fish!!!!!!!!!

[cable guy 805]

Hey Guys This is a Sailfin Blennie Loves to eat S.P.S.. I've asked all of my L.F.S. and they told me that it was reef safe, I also looked him up online as well and could not find anywhere that he is a potential threat. He ate about 20 expensive colonies of S.P.S. So Beware!!!!! anyone have a speargun?

 

[Poorcollegereef]

how did he eat them? (Ok, I know he inserts them into his mouth) but did you catch him in the act, was it all at once, was it over time? More info please. I haven't heard of this before.

 

[cable guy 805]

He actually takes a dime size bites of the colony which removes skin and polyps, and yes I watched him take a couple of bites in front of me. He did all of his damage between Fri. night and Mon. morning. Veracious eater, but a cool looking fish

 

[username in use]

from what i hear, there is a small chance that any blennie will nip at sps. But who knows if its true or not, just something I heard.

 

[Poorcollegereef]

how big is he?... dime sized chucks are significant. I just hope the fish isn't totally dependent on an SPS diet... that would be expensive. Although I have some brown digi that h can have, the stuff grows like a weed

 

[cable guy 805]

He was about 3.5" pretty good size. Not a very rare fish but I really did like him I wish it could have worked out

 

[acrodave]

im sorry but you should have done some reading on that fish.. its called a leopard blenny and it feeds on nutting but sps corals. but shame on the fish shop for haveing one

 

[CBehr]

I had a bi-color blenny that nipped on clams.

 

[snorvich]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14679922#post14679922 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by acrodave
im sorry but you should have done some reading on that fish.. its called a leopard blenny and it feeds on nutting but sps corals. but shame on the fish shop for haveing one

And it is clear that your LFS cares not about anything but selling you a fish. They are NOT reef safe.

 

[BigJay]

See if you can catch the fish and keep him in your sump. I'd try put an SPS frag into a fish trap or something.

Sell him to a reefer with a fish-only tank, that's a gorgeous fish and someone will surely be interested in him.

 

[FMarini]

he is gorgeous, but he feeds on SPS corals.
So if you put him in a Fo tank- what do you feed him?- chunks of SPs corals-

you might as well keep him in a reeftank, a huge reeftank that can tolerate dime size pieces being nipped out daily. Otherwise i guess the fish perishes

 

[snorvich]

Yup. Either he eats your corals, goes back to the LFS, or down the toilet.

 

[BigJay]

Don't flush the guy, I'm sure he'll take to some other food (i.e. Nori, film algae, etc) in a big fish-only tank.

 

[Patrick12]

He will not take any other foods.....at least the chances are very rare. The leopard sailfin blenny is an obligate sps polyp eater.

A friend of mine who owns a reef shop ordered one as well last year and he isolated it and tried to get it to eat mysis, brine, nori, etc. Of course, he eventually had to offer it some milli frags.....which it ate. He was able to sustain it for about a month or so before it perished.