scooter blenny

[azrednex]

Do they eat pods? I got one about a week ago fron Pet's Inc. I asked what do they eat ,she said "stuff that floats to the bottom". now I see it "hunting" in the rocks and sand and it doesn't eat at feeding time. I have a fairly new tank and I don't want this fish to devastate my pod pop. any advise?

[tokitay]

Yep. They are pod eaters. Mine has been actively slaying pods for nearly a year now. He will also eat live brine sometimes.

Order some pods online www.copepods.com. Make sure to let the pods go in a good rocky hiding place so they can escape the blenny and reproduce.

If you do not want to seed pods, and your blenny is not eating brine/other food, I'd take him out.

Good Luck

[reefrandy]

strange link i tried to find pods but get something else am i doing something wrong? i am int i ordering pods

[Satori]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7866318#post7866318 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by reefrandy
strange link i tried to find pods but get something else am i doing something wrong? i am int i ordering pods

Take the period off the end of the address.

[newhere]

Mine eat with the rest of my fish. Then hunt the rest of the day. What kind of foods do you feed?

[jpslickorocks]

link still does not work when you do that

[lhoo]

try this http://www.copepod.com

[azrednex]

I have what I think is a healthy pod population. I know I have at least 3 kinds. One kind is tiny(1/8 -3/16" long) and almost clear and spends most of the time on the rocks and sand. one kind is smaller than that and white and on the glass and the third kind is never above ground durring the day(I only found these when I scooped out sand to seed my fuge) these are greyish about 1/8-1/4" long and look like little shrimp. Maybe some one could name these for me, and confirm my feeling that I have the pod populace to sustain this fish. She is in a 90g reef with about 120-150# of established LR and a 2.5" deep sand bed with a 7g refugium also with LR/LS and cheato. Imput please

[kirstenk]

Sounds like you should be ok. How long has the tank been up? Try cutting the pumps when you feed frozen foods. These fish can't compete with others when the pumps are on. Squirt some food in his direction.

[rljlll]

or try dumping some rubble rock in the back behind your rock so the pods can have a place the fish cant get to

[azrednex]

No one has names for the pods I described?
The tank has only been up for about 3 months, I will try to target feed it. I do have a rubble pile I have been doing everyting I could to increase the pod pop. I wanted to someday keep a mandrin pair, but I guess I'm trying with scooters, I think its's a female If she does well maybe eventually I'll try for a male. BTW The only fish I have in this tank are the scooter and a Alard's clown pair. Inverts are 4 turbos, about 70 ilyanassa obsoleta snails, 6 or 7 hermits and a tiger tail cuke, 1 bulb tip anenome some orange zoanthids, xenia, a bubble polyp frag some shrooms, and a tiny brittle star I just found.

[azrednex]

No one has names for the pods I described?
The tank has only been up for about 3 months, I will try to target feed it. I do have a rubble pile I have been doing everything I could to increase the pod pop. I wanted to someday keep a mandarin pair, but I guess I'm trying with scooters, I think its's a female If she does well maybe eventually I'll try for a male. BTW The only fish I have in this tank are the scooter and a Alard's clown pair. Inverts are 4 turbos, about 70 ilyanassa obsoleta snails, 6 or 7 hermits and a tiger tail cuke, 1 bulb tip anenome some orange zoanthids, xenia, a bubble polyp frag some shrooms, and a tiny brittle star I just found.

[kirstenk]

The ones hanging out on your glass are copepods. They are the food that Mandarins eat and I am guessing that the Scooter prefers them also.

You will not be dissapointed with a mated pair of Scooters. I have seen some videos of them doing their dance and it was way cool.

Phyto is a food source to boost pod populations, works great but ya gotta watch out not to overdose or some nasty algaes will appear.

[grenaria]

The smallest ones on the glass are most likely copepods like Kirsten said. A picture wouldn't help ID them, as you generally can barely make out any morphology with your eyes. The look like tiny periods or commas depending on their life stage. Most hitchhikers are white, although ATR sells cultures of red ones that are quite a bit larger (still periods and commas though). Copepods in the ocean vary in every way imaginable, although few are tropical and survive the rigors of importation. The largest copepods are over a foot long and are whale parasites.

The next size up are most likely isopods. There are terrestrial isopods that every child knows, pill bugs (roly polys). The aquatic ones range in size and shape of course, but the very small ones look like clear ants with too many legs. They do not curl up like pill bugs, but some of their marine cousins do.

The next size past that sound like amphipods (Gammarus shrimp, side shrimp, sea lice, scuds). These are fascinating animals in their own right, and are interesting to observe. They are capable of quite complex behavior and are amazingly adept hiders. I had taken a Montipora digitata skeleton out of my aquarium while aquascaping and forgot to submerge it afterwards. The following day I examined the dried skeleton and found the bodies of hundreds of young amphipods who were each occupying individual corallites of the skeleton. If you have never seen a montipora skeleton, the corallites are the size of a sharpened pencil tip.

You say you do not see your amphipods during the day much, but if they are not over predated or out competed for space, you will eventually see a lot of them. I have watched on many occasions my Turbinaria sp. catch and consume them live during the day, as well as my Stonogobiops yasha gobies. It is fascinating to watch them hunt, even though they rarely hunt in the wild, they are amazingly fast, but rarely catch their prey on the first try. They are quite good at catching isopods.

The other most common "pod" are mysis shrimp. They are also primarily nocturnal and much too fast for most fish.

[azrednex]

Thank you very much for the information.

[Sk8r]

The scooter is not a blenny though often called that---it is a dragonet like the mandarins and fingered dragonets. His proper name is 'scooter dragonet', although no one uses it.

PS: don't take that fish store's word for anything hereafter: 'stuff that floats to the bottom' is not a knowledgeable answer. I'd sooner have "I honestly don't know."