Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

I purchased a scooter blenny this weekend , with the thought in my mind of a sailfin/bicolor, etc (ie: Algae eater). Didn't realize until later that he is in the dragonette family, a pod eater. This would be like me sticking a mandarin in my newly established tank. I did not want to do this. I have seen hardly any signs of amphipods, but have seen copepods , not exactly a huge population. I do have a huge population of them in my smaller tank, and have swapped some of the live rock between the two tanks... I was rewarded with the sight of pods coming out of the rocks after putting them in the new tank. It is not going to be enough, I know this, unless I can culture copeopods (in-line refugium is not an option at the present time) or train this fellow to eat other food, he is going to starve to death.

I feel like a newbie idiot for getting this fish, (oh wait, I am). I am going to setup a 5/10 gal w/ some macros, and see if I can get a better population. I will probably just suck up some from my small tank and squirt them in there. I understand that copepods take a while to take-off though.

Any tips on training him to accept other foods. Can I gut-load live-brine and work toward dead brine?

This is a 125 w/ approx 180-190lbs of lr btw, he is picking over the rocks and sand pretty hard, but doubt he is getting enough.

Well I am not going to make lite of the problem but I might can make you feel a little better. When we first went in to the salt world a little over 3 years ago we started out with like an 20 gallon tank with a little live rock and absolutely no knowledge and pretty much no support... Well our first few fish purchases were absolute no-no's... we ended up with a Starry Dragonette (scooter blenny) and a psychodelic manderin in a basically what was a new tank and a new 20 gallon to boot. We didn't start doing on-line research until after the fact, hate to admit it but it is true. We took the advise of the LFS guys telling us oh yeah those fish will do fine together, oh 20 gallon that is plenty... Well all in all one of the reasons we almost immediately moved up to the 75 was trying to keep these two fish alive, instead of taking them back to the LFS.

If it makes you feel any better we kept those two fish alive for over a year with little to no problem, they did destroy the pod population but with a refugium and transfering the liverock to and from the refugium to the tank we didn't have too many problems. The only reasons those two fish eventually met their maker was a killer epidemic of saltwater ich that got many of our fish, several we had- had for well over a year.

I am not say that you may not have a problem but we kept them a live from the start, in a brand new tank and they lived together for over a year. Hope that helps.

Amy

Just keep an eye on his belly, it should be flat or at best a slight bulge. If it starts to cave in he is a goner.

I would do like you are planning and over feed your tank for a while. Keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite levels and if you see onlything funny going on stop overfeeding. The excess food will increase your pod population (hopefully fast enough to maintain the little fellow).

Scott

Thank you, I'll be feeding more to see if that helps in the main tank.
I will cut back on the skimming a bit also, I've been skimming the heck out of this tank since it is new.
He is a bit on the skinny side, but I have to try.