New tankmate: Lawnmower goby

[RioReefr]

Just got a small lawnmower goby and he seems to have taken home to a large sprawling Devil's Leather coral. Haven't seen him move from there all day -- is this just fear? I actually thought gobies where bottom-dwellers??

There are lots of little caves, holes, and passageways in my bottom rockwork so just think it is strange he has made the leather coral his home.

Also, I haven't seen him eat anything. Tossed in some LFS Algae Max which he hasn't touched and its gone to my CUC. There is definitely glass algae and haven't seen him munch on that either.

I will chalk this up to first-day blues for now, but doesn't seem like normal behavior to me.

 

[mcgyvr]

Sounds like totally normal first day stuff to me....good luck...not sure how well he will do in your small tank...they typically need sufficient short hair algae in larger systems...

 

[Crooked Reef]

Mine has been in my tank for a year and have never seen it eat prepared foods.

 

[tdlawdo]

Do you mean a lawnmower blennie? Salarias fasciatus? If so, they are "œdetritivores" with less than 20% of their diet being plants. But having said that mine does eat newly fed pellets that make it to the bottom and often hangs out in "œodd" places. Give him a few days to find his chill spot.


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[RioReefr]

Do you mean a lawnmower blennie? Salarias fasciatus? If so, they are "œdetritivores" with less than 20% of their diet being plants.

Yeah, my bad....you are correct, a Lawnmower Blenny is what he is.

I woke up this morning and couldn't find him. I sort of panicked, but then saw him peek his head out of a large hole in this big porous rock. It would be cool if he made that his home because no other fish goes in there.

I definitely have detritus, live-rock w/some GHA, glass algae. In addition, I feed NLS Marine formula (which contains various algae types) and have Nori in the tank as well. In general, most of my fish eat the grated-up frozen shrimp and some pods so there shouldn't be an issue with food sources.

Everything I read is this type of Blenny is super easy to care for and will eat practically everything. Lots of places for him to hide and plenty of different food sources. I would really like a bigger tank (75-90G) and it will happen eventually.

(This was my 1-year anniversary present to me of being in the hobby and I have learned a lot from this forum...thanks to all who have helped ).

 

[RioReefr]

Just a quick experiment...

I decided to take some small scissors to a piece of Nori. I cut up tiny pieces of this Nori and tossed it in the tank --- I never have I seen a fish swim so fast to pick them off!!! Strange, but as soon as they hit the water column he grabbed them and munched on them.

 

[tdlawdo]

Cool! I find them super easy and easy going also. I had my first in a small nano tank years ago and then moved him to a biocube 29 about 5 years ago and he did fine. I am getting ready to start a 230 g tank from WaterBox. Just amassing all the paraphernalia now. Can't wait!


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[Tastee]

We love our Lawnmower Blenny, Benny, too - lots of character and a real CUC workhorse. He and our Yellow Tang, Carol, do a great job on Algae.