Neosynchiropus Ocellatus (scooter Blenny)

[BigC]

Hi,
Anyone ever included a Scooter in their projects and if so how did they fit in as regards to feeding and general husbandry.
Regards
BigC

 

[littleme1969]

Hi Big C
Yes I have a scooter blenny you will have seen him in my nano thread.
5 months on and he is still doing great, eating well and generally being verry entertaining.
Feeding can be a bit tricky with them as they wont take any dry food. Make sure you find one that is eating frozen, also check unnder their belly to make sure they are nice and plump. The tail is also a good indication of how healthy and well fed they are, the fatter the better.
They are a great community fish and will bother nothing in the tank, that includes corals too. Very friendly and seem to enjoy showing off at the front of the tank to any human willing to watch.
If you can find one that is feeding well then grab it

 

[BigC]

And what size is yours I didn't want anything that grows too large.
Regards
BigC

 

[matt295]

i have a scooter blenny and mandarin in my 50 gallon tank (although not a nano). i have gotten both of them to eat pellets i think because i have seen both of them pick at pellets and not spit them out. The scooter blenny looks really spectacular when he flares his fin. My scooter's face turns blue! He is about 1 inch but i have seen some that are 2 inches.

 

[SkiFletch]

Agree with the above. The scooter blenny naturally eats copepods, amphipods, etc in the wild and thus can be difficult to ween on to frozen or prepared foods. Some ultimately just won't eat man-made foods, and end up withering away in home aquaria. Others like matt's and littleme's eat prepared foods readily and are great success stories. When choosing a scooter blenny it is very very important to observe it in the LFS before purchase. Ensure it has a full/not sunken belly, and ask the LFS to feed it for you to make sure it is eating prepared foods. Other than getting them to feed, their care is easy.

My one tip, if they struggle to feed, try fish roe from your local asian market

 

[BigC]

When choosing a scooter blenny it is very very important to observe it in the LFS before purchase. Ensure it has a full/not sunken belly, and ask the LFS to feed it for you to make sure it is eating prepared foods. Other than getting them to feed, their care is easy.

Yeah kinda knew all that Ski and I always look for bad points before I make a decision to buy any livestock at the LFS. So they are the same as any Dragonets just feeding is the problem.
I dont live too far from the coast and when we up turn stones on the beach in summer there are copepods, are these fine to feed to a tropical marine aquaria or would you refrain from this practice.
Regards
BigC

 

[SkiFletch]

Hummm, I suppose not. My general thought on that would be the difficulty in collecting them without introducing whole rocks into your tank. I'd worry about adding new temperate rocks to your tank all the time just to try and keep pod populations up, who knows what might come in on one eventually...

 

[littleme1969]

Hi Big C
If you just stick to nuying one that is proven eating frozen, then you will do just fine. Mines fuly grown at about 7cms long. He eats well on frozen mysis, brine, daphnia, bloodworm etc but his fav is small krill despite trying, ive never been able to get him to eat dried foods of any kind. He constantly hunts for pods around the tank. Hes probably the most interesting and entertaining of all my fish, almost like a little sea dragon

 

[SkiFletch]

FWIW, I hear more success stories of getting scooters to eat frozen than I do mandarins. Just my subjective experience though, I've no real data to back that up. Could be just a function of the circles I hang around in, so take that with a grain of salt