Stygnobrotula Latibricola or the black widow

[Lemonsong]

Hello everyone out there. I was flipping through a marine fish atlas I have and I came upon the most precular of fish. It is called the Black widow goby...when in fact it is actually a small cusk eel. I was wondering if anyone had any extensive knowledge of this fish. I have seen it a couple of times and here is the info that I know of:

Size: 8 cm or 3"
Agression: None very communal
Swimming level: Bottom to middle
Ideal set up: reef or lots of live rock
Prefers a weaker lighting with no high noon period

This is all the info I know off hand of this fish, I ask the LFS and they had never even heard of it let alone seen it. If anyone has any knowledge of keeping this fish or has one please respond. Well "Tanks" alot and happy fish keeping.

 

[TCTFish]

By the description given, sounds like a deep reef fish where there is little light. I've never seen it nor heard of it until your post. I did a Google image search and ONE photo came up. LOL. Certainly not a common fish on the market and I would assume it'd be a bit more costly than most fish because it is deep reef and divers have to go down further for them. Not many divers go down into deep reefs.

BTW...They are gobies...not eels. Eels don't have fins.

What is the scientific name for this fish? What does it say in the atlas? That would be helpful in researchng this species.

 

[Lemonsong]

I gave the scientific name for this fish: Stygnobrotula Latibricola. And BTW It is a cusk

eel...I have found it in a number of sources since then and it is a cusk eel, but commonly

mistaken for a goby. I am going to keep searching...but my LFS went out of business today

so I am going to have to find it somewhere else

 

[TCTFish]

Oops...duh!! The name is right in the topic title. Sorry...LOL. Hate it when that happens Anyway....

There weren't ANY photos under the scientific name at all...not even of other fish. So much for Google, but I did come across photos under cusk eels. From what I'm gathering here is those fish are neither gobies nor eels. Just because the word 'eel' is in its name doesn't make it a true eel...just eel like. True eels do not have fins. Another example is the Wolf Eel, which is actually a blenny.

cusk eel
n.
Any of several bottom-dwelling, eellike, chiefly marine fishes of the family Ophidiidae.

The above was taken from dictionary.com.

Sorry to hear about your LFS. It may be difficult no matter where you go to find these fish on the market. If divers have to go 100 feet or more for these fish, you might not find them available at all. Too much for a diver to bother with being they'd have to decompress several times for a good period of time each stop on the way up. Decompression from such depths can take hours. Even dives deeper than 50 feet for aquarium fish can be quite hazardous. This is why such deep reef/ocean animals are difficult to obtain in the aquarium trade and why the ones that are on the market are expensive. Good luck.