What is this fish?
- Thread starter DirectCherry
- Start date
- Tagged users None
lagatbezan
Well-Known Member
Looks like a engineer goby.
Glenner’sreef
2500 Club Member
I think yes on Engineer Goby. Peaceful great reef fish. Gets pretty big. I’ve seen them 10-12” long. They are diggers though everywhere, anywhere.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
Will burry any corals on the sand or low on thr rocks. Great fish.
MaxTremors
2500 Club Member
Great fish, mostly peaceful, but will defend its lair (they’ll dig out an entire area under your rocks with multiple exits. Juveniles look kind of different, instead of the vertical banding the adults have, the have a single horizontal/lateral line down their whole body and their tail comes to a point (adults have a rounded tail). Also, the juvenile’s stripe is white, while the banding on the adult can be an off-white, yellow, or whitish green. Cool fish though, they live quite a while.
Yep it's an Engineer Goby. Also called a Convict Blenny, which is interesting since they're neither a goby nor a blenny.
They're my favorite fish - I've got a pair now in my 100g. They start off as schooling fish in the open water, and then at come point change their coloration and migrate into the sand. As they grow, their patterns change and evolve.
There are huge schools of them in the wild. Check out this video.
If you visit you local fish store(s), you may have seen them many times and not realized it. I saw them many times before I learned what they were and how they changed when growing into adulthood. I rarely see adults (like in the video posted by the OP), but see juveniles quite often.
They're my favorite fish - I've got a pair now in my 100g. They start off as schooling fish in the open water, and then at come point change their coloration and migrate into the sand. As they grow, their patterns change and evolve.
There are huge schools of them in the wild. Check out this video.
If you visit you local fish store(s), you may have seen them many times and not realized it. I saw them many times before I learned what they were and how they changed when growing into adulthood. I rarely see adults (like in the video posted by the OP), but see juveniles quite often.
MaxTremors
2500 Club Member
The juveniles mimick coral/striped catfish, which are venomous. Kind of a genius evolutionary adaptation.
OP
OP
DirectCherry
Active Member
Its so crazy to me to think that most of the fish in that school will become "mini eels" and hide amongst the reef. Are the reefs in some areas just FULL of them?
OP
OP
DirectCherry
Active Member
Has anyone that has these Convict Blennies had them eat any of your shrimp or other fish? According to this site: https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/help-and-advice/marine/blennies-gobies/convict-blenny- "adults will eat ornamental shrimps and small fish."
I'm wondering what the survival rate of those schools are. It could be that many of them are eaten by the time they make it to adulthood. I believe octopi, for example, have tens of thousands of offspring, but only several survive to adulthood.
Yes, they'll do that. They're not aggressive at all towards other species, but will eat fish that can fit in their mouths.
Similar threads
