Scooter Blenny?

[ccg24]

I bought a scooter blenny, yesterday. I was wondering if I need to feed him something special, or is he just strictly a scavanger eating the food that had fallen down that the other fish hadn't eaten?
and It's hard to find that little guy he might be right infront of you but you can't find him untill he moves along the bottom of the CC .... I was going to send a can you find waldo pic but my digi camera's pics are too large so.... I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about but that lil guy is stealthy .... lol

 

[pontius]

a scooter blenny is a dragonette, like the mandarin. they eat copepods. as far as I know, they are not scavengers. do you have plenty of pods in your tank?

 

[ccg24]

well I'm not to sure what a copepod is? I am kinda hittin myself cause I don't but I was reading the info about them on here and it said to feed them..... Live Worms, Live Brine, Microfauna. which I can do..... I am glad I can because I wasn't sure what I was going to do if I didn't have sufficent food for him...... kinda a relief but still a little nervous that I'm not sure what copepods are

 

[pontius]

copepods are tiny invertebrates, about the size of the tip on an inkpen. if you're tank is cycled and you have plenty of live rock, you should see the copepods crawling around on the rock.
the questions to ask yourself are:
what size tank?
how long has it been set up?
how much live rock do you have in it?
if the answers are: small, not long, not much rock......you need to get rid of the fish. you MAY get lucky and get a dragonette that will eat prepared foods, but that's a rarity. also, brine shrimp (live or frozen) will not sustain a fish.
watch the fish for a week and if it does not seem to be eating much, I'd take him back.

 

[ccg24]

Ok
but it's 45g tank set up for 2 months and about 10 maybe lil more of LR..... buying LR slowly... it's freakin expensive plus the tank is MO..... but yeah theres all kinds of creatures pokin out of the LR all the time I've seen them come out and eat some food that was for my fish....

 

[pontius]

I'd say 10 pounds of live rock is definitely not enough. I imagine one dragonette could clean all pods off 10 pounds of rock within a week and then slowly starve to death. I had a mandarin starve to death in a 72 gallon with 130 pounds of live rock. I would say that it's unlikely that this fish will live for more than 2 months in such a setting, sorry.
I've seen it recommended that no dragonette be kept in a tank with less that 100 pounds of live rock. also, refugiums are very beneficial since the copepods can reproduce there without predation from the fish.

 

[reefnut]

If you do not get him eating prepared foods with in the next few days... take him back. He WILL slowly starve if not.
If he will accept something like Formula 1 pellet food, frozen foods, whatever, then you should be fine as long as you feed him enough and make sure he eats enough. They are very slow eaters that are used to feeding a little all day long instead of all at once, so other more aggressive fish could easily eat up the food making it where he's not getting enough.

 

[travis89]

Mine eats formula one pellets and mysis shrimp. I have had it in a 46 w/50 lbs LR for 6 months and it is doing great.