Fish identification

[M_v_P]

Hi there,

Been a long-time lurker but now is the time to become active :fun2:.
Recently I bought this fish but the store owner could not tell me what the name is for this fish.

All I know is that the fish swims in the Maledives area, has no swim blatter and is about 3 cm. long (sorry I'm from Europe :rolleye1.

Hopefully one of you knows the name.

(apologies for the dirty window )

Regards,

Marcel

 

[kirkaz]

Looks like a young member of the Salarias family (blenny), they are good algae eaters if it is.

 

[tcmfish]

Definitely not. It is family Blenniidae and Salarias is the Genus name, but that isn't your fish. Might be of the Paraclinus genus, but location and the lack of an eye spot are throwing me off. Or it could be of the genus Heteroclinus, but location doesn't match and the temperature would probably be too high for it. Might be Springeratus, fits location, but I can't find a live pic.

Also it definitely isn't an algae eater, you can tell by the jaw structure. It has a big mouth for swallowing prey, if it was an algae eater it would have down turned lips for scraping like the genus Salarias.

Sorry this wasn't much help, but good luck. That is a toughy.

 

[romsoccer12]

i caught one of those cod fishing in florida, if im correct they have some nasty teath, he was good perch bait though

 

[tcmfish]

The fish in question is pretty tiny. Notice the size of the shell, gravel, and polyps in the picture. So I doubt you caught it cod fishing and if it has teeth they probably couldn't hurt you.

 

[kirkaz]

3 cm = barely over an inch, it may be tough to classify until it gets a little bigger.

Some sort of Sand Perch??

 

[Luiz Rocha]

Is Maledives = Maldives? I am with you Tim, and I also think it is either Springeratus or Heteroclinus, but I think neither are recorded from the Maldives. Thing is, with fish in the aquarium trade you can never be absolutely sure about the location, and these guys are pretty hard to identify even when you do know the location.

 

[MrTuskfish]

i caught one of those cod fishing in florida, if im correct they have some nasty teath, he was good perch bait though

Cod fishing, in Florida????

 

[romsoccer12]

off the coast, there were a bunch of people and we were having horrible luck and the guy next to us caught a sand perch just like that and let us use it as bait, it did an awesome job, i think i got the name wrong of the fish we were going for, its a 3 letter name

 

[M_v_P]

Wow! Luiz and Tim, you guys might be right!

First of all it's indeed the Maldives. Secondly, it's indeed not an algea eater. Eats only frozen and live food. The fish has a nice hunting-habit. It does not gobble up all food like my Darwin clownfish but watches it and then strikes.

If I look at pictures of Springeratus Xanthososma it really resembles my fish. Mines greener though...

Could we have a match here as the Fishbase map also locates it nearby the Maldives?

Regards,

Marcel

 

[M_v_P]

Now that we have a positive ID (just google Springeratus+experience and you end up in a year old thread on this forum) I am very curious if people have (had) this fish and what their experience with this fish is/was.
Because I can get a second fish probably and it would be nice to have a couple.

Regards,

Marcel