[mollymonticello]

Triggerfish, are you sure it was a velvet fish that you saw trying to eat the neon goby? How big was the velvet fish and how big was the goby? I'm a little alarmed. They don't get very big themselves. I hope mine never decides to eat my little fish, that's pretty much all I have--small gobies and a few pipefish. Two of my pipes are really small, like 2 inches.

I have seen my velvetfish eating cyclops. He is just in a 55 gallon tank, so I can find him pretty quickly. That is really neat that you got yours to eat out of your hand, Chrisstie. I am not that brave!

So the venom is in the dorsal fin. I will remember that. I saw the white lines on the pectoral fins and thought that might be where the venom comes out...shows how much I know. He does use his pectorals kind of like "hands," though. He is pretty cute.

Their closest relative is the scorpion fish. Scorpionfishes and velvetfishes are in the same order--Scorpaeniformes.