Scooter blenny setup

[Fishbird]

I’ve been thinking of getting a 40 gallon breeder and using black acrylic to wall off 6” at one end. I would use this as an in tank refugium. It should be about 6 gallons. I’ve seen so much conflicting information about scooter blenny (dragonet) care. It seems like the remaining tank space (544 sq in or 3.75 sq ft) would be pretty cramped for a five inch fish. LiveAquaria says they would be fine though. Here are my questions for those who’ve kept this fish.

1. is this enough space for a scooter blenny?
2. Would my refugium likely be enough to keep up enough pod production? The only fish I have right now is a transparent cave goby but I do believe it eats pods.
3. Would I be better off going with a mandarin since those stay smaller?
4. If the tank I’ve described would be a good place for any kind of dragonet, would a royal gramma be an acceptable tank mate? I’ve also read conflicting things about whether or not they eat pods.

Any dragonet I get would be captive bred so hopefully it would continue to eat frozen at least once or twice a day but as far as I can tell even the captive bred ones do much better when they have an ample supply of live food to snack on all day. I don’t want to have to culture pods outside the tank and I don’t want to watch any fish starve to death.

 

[Chrisfish]

I’m only speaking from my experience, I had a well established tank and a highly populated pod population, captive bred scooter blenny and it hurt my heart that it didn’t make it, as it sounds like this would be a new set up I would not have a scooter Blenny or a Mandarine, they are such beautiful, awesome fish at such a new tank, again I’m only speaking from my experience.

 

[Fishbird]

Thanks for your experience and I’m sorry it wasn’t good. The tank is only in my imagination right now but the fish wouldn’t be added until the tank had been really for 6mos-year. I’m just trying to get a sense of what I might put in it so I can plan.

Did you have a refugium as well?

 

[Chrisfish]

Thanks for your experience and I’m sorry it wasn’t good. The tank is only in my imagination right now but the fish wouldn’t be added until the tank had been really for 6mos-year. I’m just trying to get a sense of what I might put in it so I can plan.

Did you have a refugium as well?

Yes

 

[Fishbird]

Thanks. I’d still like to hear others’ thoughts but at this point I probably won’t try it. LiveAquaria usually seems to operate on the safe side of tank size guidelines so I got my hopes up for a bit