Help me identify this fish

[treeside]

GO!

 

[treeside]

Anyone?

 

[Dvara78]

Looks like a kind of hawkfish.....does it hop or skip over the rocks?

 

[matt_wahoo]

+1 on the hawkfish

 

[fishcomputer]

im actually convinced that is in fact a blenny look at the antennas.

 

[Bret61081]

Any idea where it came from?

 

[Impossible]

Very interesting, never seen one before but it looks like what you would get if you mixed a blenny and a hawkfish...

 

[antimatter]

thats cool, where did you get it?

 

[treeside]

Any idea where it came from?

Someone i know from another forum caught it off the coast of Florida. It was in really shallow water and he put it in his tank

 

[mattGgator]

It really looks like a hawkfish to me as well. However, I don't think hawkfish hang out in the sand all of the time- they are more rock and coral dwellers. Is it always in the sand or was it just there and he took the pic? If it's always in the sand I would go with a blenny of some sort.

 

[tcmfish]

I'd say Rosy Blenny, Malacoctenus macropus.

 

[theronsta]

Yeah it looks like some kind of cave blenny

 

[philter4]

Tcmfish is correct, it is a rosy blenny, and it is a male, females don't have the red under the face. Also it came from the southern tip if Florida, as you go north and or east the color pattern gets whiter with less red on the face, but more dark spots instead of stripes on the body. This is a smaller blenny, only getting a little over 2 inches for an adult, it is usually peaceful but I have seen them kill shrimp that were too big to eat whole by beating them against the bottom until they broke them up. Still it is only a 2 inch fish so any medium or larger shrimp will not be bothered. They are territorial so you should not try to get another one but they are easy to care for, eating just about everything and leaving all of the corals and other fish alone.

 

[treeside]

Tcmfish is correct, it is a rosy blenny, and it is a male, females don't have the red under the face. Also it came from the southern tip if Florida, as you go north and or east the color pattern gets whiter with less red on the face, but more dark spots instead of stripes on the body. This is a smaller blenny, only getting a little over 2 inches for an adult, it is usually peaceful but I have seen them kill shrimp that were too big to eat whole by beating them against the bottom until they broke them up. Still it is only a 2 inch fish so any medium or larger shrimp will not be bothered. They are territorial so you should not try to get another one but they are easy to care for, eating just about everything and leaving all of the corals and other fish alone.

I'd say Rosy Blenny, Malacoctenus macropus.

Thanks guys. If you're ever by Los Angeles I'll pick you up a beer.