Peacock blenny (Salaria pavo) experience

[zarathustra]

I'll post my experience here with wild-caught individuals from the Adriatic sea. It's not a common fish in the trade.

This is my first saltwater tank with limited freshwater experience (<1y), so don't be surprised by unusual parameters and setups.

 

[zarathustra]

1. It is a beautiful fish. You will occasionally see these gorgeous light blue markings, especially on larger individuals on the anal fin. There are also beautiful markings around the head, with the blue circles and lines.

2. It is an interesting and active fish (for a bottom-dweller, anyway). The blenny patrols and hides in multiple spots. It is not passive and generally swims every once in a while. The fish will tend to hide when you turn the lights on, but it won't stay that way for too long. It still prefers to move within the plane decoration, though, where you can scarcely see it. It does not seem to react to me.

3. But it is very aggressive, unfortunately. It has managed to kill 3 adult rockpool shrimp (Palaemon elegans) in 2 days. These shrimp were 60% of the fish's length. While the shrimp initially manage to escape the fish, it is unrelenting, and eventually the shrimp tire and slow down, after which the fish deals the few final blows. It is not a good hunter, but given a small, limited space (in this case, a nano tank of 14L (3.7 gal)), it will probably kill any shrimp within its territory. It's not just shrimp that are incompatible in a smaller area, it's also some other decapods. I've witnessed these fish attack a black squat lobster (Galathea squamifera). It also bullies the slightly smaller incognito goby (Gobius incognitus) whenever it has the chance, but the goby has actually managed to adjust. It received a minor injury in the first day or two, but now the blenny isn't really pursuing it anymore. As soon as the blenny approaches, the goby runs off and is not pursued. The blenny currently in this tank is a female, probably close to being an adult or only recently having become one. When I briefly added a larger male, the female immediately retreated from its main hiding spot and tried to act inconspicuous. It remains to be seen what would happen on a longer scale with both of these fish in this small tank.

4. It is a hardy fish. I am keeping the redundant/extra male in a 16L plastic container with nothing more than an air stone for almost a week now. It's still doing fine. I wouldn't be surprised if it could hold out a lot longer than that. There was another, bigger specimen I caught to preserve in ethanol, and it survived 6+ hours in a small jar, maybe 4 times its volume, without anything else. In comparison, a rockpool shrimp could never survive that long.

5. They are apparently omnivorous, but I have not yet witnessed them eating any algae off the live rock in the tank. Instead, they've mostly displayed carnivorous behavior. I found a shell of a porcelain crab (Porcellana platycheles) under the plane decoration. The larger blenny in its own container has readily fed on Amtra black pearl 0.5mm pellets, whereas the female blenny in the main tank has ignored that. It could be that that's simply because it doesn't prefer the pellets, and having fed on shrimp and crabs the preceding days, it was full enough to afford to ignore them. It could also be something else.

6. Based on what I can see in another thread, these fish shouldn't be too hard to breed.

7. I will update as I learn more.