I've had my lawn mower blenny in my 5.5 month old 32 gallon DT for 28 days.
For the past 48 hours he has stayed in one place in the tank. He flips his orientation on the ledge 180 degrees, maybe once or twice a day. He's clearly in a spot where he doesn't have to support himself.
He's breathing and his eyes move.
But I'm not sure what to do for him. Leave him? Put him in a hospital tank?
My first guess is that he is starving to death, which is why he's not out and about. But I have no idea. He's not that thin. He has generally seemed healthy.
The TL/DNR;
He's never eaten anything I've tried in earnest to give him (various algae preparations/nori, etc.). Instead, he's been pecking mostly at the algae on the back of the tank and other areas. He certainly eats, and spends a lot of time doing it. I can see areas on the back of the tank that he has cleared, for example. For some mysterious reason there is one spot on a very small part of my substantial rockscape where he pecks aggressively at the rock (the kind of behavior I'd expect based on research), whereas he doesn't "clean" the rest of my rock work. I have no idea if he's getting enough food though. If anything he has gotten a little "whispy-ier", certainly not bigger and fatter like all my other fish. It's hard to tell. He's obviously not in danger of obesity, but likewise, he hasn't seemed to be starving (I'm not expert though, and again, this has been my primary concern with him).
In recent times, he does this comical thing where he tries to swim into (or come from above to land on) the MP10 and eat algae off that. It's been a little disconcerting that he might get injured, but he's a fairly strong swimmer and I've never witnessed a problem. Maybe he took a beating in that? I see no injuries but he's tucked into a spot, so hard to say for sure.
To my knowledge I do not have DINOs, at least not in major outbreak amounts. But there's various algae problems in this newish tank, and I have wondered if something he's eaten has poisoned him.
I have 5 other very healthy and growing small fish, no one has been picking on him. The tank occasionally has some small amounts of aggression from my blue chromis and/or the yellow coris wrasse, but it's minor and fairly rare. Usually it's the chromis and the wrasse getting into it. Astonishingly, I have an orange fire fish that doesn't take crap from anyone. So the aggression that exists is from whimps, there's no major bullies in the tank.
For the past 48 hours he has stayed in one place in the tank. He flips his orientation on the ledge 180 degrees, maybe once or twice a day. He's clearly in a spot where he doesn't have to support himself.
He's breathing and his eyes move.
But I'm not sure what to do for him. Leave him? Put him in a hospital tank?
My first guess is that he is starving to death, which is why he's not out and about. But I have no idea. He's not that thin. He has generally seemed healthy.
The TL/DNR;
He's never eaten anything I've tried in earnest to give him (various algae preparations/nori, etc.). Instead, he's been pecking mostly at the algae on the back of the tank and other areas. He certainly eats, and spends a lot of time doing it. I can see areas on the back of the tank that he has cleared, for example. For some mysterious reason there is one spot on a very small part of my substantial rockscape where he pecks aggressively at the rock (the kind of behavior I'd expect based on research), whereas he doesn't "clean" the rest of my rock work. I have no idea if he's getting enough food though. If anything he has gotten a little "whispy-ier", certainly not bigger and fatter like all my other fish. It's hard to tell. He's obviously not in danger of obesity, but likewise, he hasn't seemed to be starving (I'm not expert though, and again, this has been my primary concern with him).
In recent times, he does this comical thing where he tries to swim into (or come from above to land on) the MP10 and eat algae off that. It's been a little disconcerting that he might get injured, but he's a fairly strong swimmer and I've never witnessed a problem. Maybe he took a beating in that? I see no injuries but he's tucked into a spot, so hard to say for sure.
To my knowledge I do not have DINOs, at least not in major outbreak amounts. But there's various algae problems in this newish tank, and I have wondered if something he's eaten has poisoned him.
I have 5 other very healthy and growing small fish, no one has been picking on him. The tank occasionally has some small amounts of aggression from my blue chromis and/or the yellow coris wrasse, but it's minor and fairly rare. Usually it's the chromis and the wrasse getting into it. Astonishingly, I have an orange fire fish that doesn't take crap from anyone. So the aggression that exists is from whimps, there's no major bullies in the tank.
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