Tiny Fish Hitchhiker!! Please help ID

[Almogia]

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure where this post should go but i'm hoping you might be able to help me.

I recently collected some wild Red Sea Galaxea colonies (with government permission, no worries), and I just started to frag one of them when I came across these two adorable fish (maybe they are eels?).

They are about as long as my thumb all told, greyish in color, with little blueish stripes on their heads and reddish eyes. They seem to be a male and female, the female is pregnant - her whole abdomen is swollen and you can see the little pop eyed offspring inside).
(sorry for the potato photos, it's hard to get them to sit still.)

Anyone know what these are??

 

[sedgro]

Tiny Fish Hitchhiker!! Please help ID

Likely some sort of Siokunichthys pipefish. I believe there is one that is symbiotic with galaxea, but I don't know the species name.

 

[donut0079]

i think this is the fish you are talking about. It is a pugnose or red galaxea pipefish.

 

[donut0079]

And if that is the case the pregnant one is the male.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Those are some awesome hitchhikers!

 

[Almogia]

I managed to get a better picture of him - the pugnose seems to be closest in shape, but neither of the ones I have are even remotely red, as you can see.

 

[donut0079]

The white on the face looks right. There is very little info that I could find. The pugnose is symbiotic with galaxea.

 

[Almogia]

I looked up the family name Bulbonaricus and I think it might be Bulbonaricus davaoensis.
Thanks for the help, donut!!

 

[donut0079]

Ok sorry some are referring to it as a pugnose which is also used for another type of pipefish. Most refer to it as a pughead pipefish. Apparently I'm finding info on two types. One is Brauns pughead pipefish and the other is the Daveo pughead pipefish. Both are found in the Red Sea and both apparently live in galaxea. I can't tell from the description how to tell the difference but I hope that helps. Bulbonaricus davaoensis or bulbonaricus brauni would be my guess.

 

[teemee]

wow - lucky you! I've sent pics of these to one of my wholesalers - they are gorgeous. feel free to send them to Canada

 

[ThRoewer]

You should try to breed these - I'm sure there is a market for these kind of symbionts.
I would definitely be interested.
I've been looking for Siokunichthys nigrolineatus, the ones that live in Fungia actiniformis for quite a while.

 

[sedgro]

Quality Marine had 5 Siokunichthys nigrolineatus listed available about two weeks ago. I had my LFS order all of them. Unfortunately they didn't ship - rep said they were having problems keeping them alive.

 

[ThRoewer]

I think they need to be with the fungia all the time. I imagine they either live of the slime or of plankton the fungia catches. Their snouts don't look like as if they feed like other pipefish.