Lawnmower Blenny

[JPloman]

My sweet baby Lawny has stopped eating. He has become very skinny. I put Nori in the tank with him, but he wont even look at it. Do any of you have any suggestions???

 

[HoopsGuru]

What was it easting prior to stopping...nori and other algaes or meat based foods?

 

[melosu58]

A lot of times people run out of algea in the tank and the blennies starve to death because they wont eat anything else. But I`ve heard good stories of some that did change. Good luck

 

[JPloman]

Well prior to this he was eating what was just naturally occuring in the tank. I have tons of calurpa, cheato, and other macro algaes for him to eat, if he wanted to. I even got some of those clips and put the nori and red algae stuff on them. He wont even go near them.

We increased the light hours... maybe that will help to produce more algae, but I am worried. I moved my spinny sea urchin into the sump so he would stop eating all of Lawny's food, do you think that will help too?

 

[steve-s]

Best suggestion is stop cleaning the glass for a bit and allow the film algae to build up. This is their primary food source, not macro algaes. Some do take to solid foods but this is very rare. When you see the blenny grazing over the caulerpa and such, it isn't actually injesting it for the most part. It's scraping the film that's growing on the algae.

When I used to keep them, I always alternated which glass pane was cleaned. This allowed at least one glass area to have something to offer the blenny at all times. Don't forget this fish will also be competing with snails for food resources so the more food the better.


Curious, was the weight loss sudden or gradual?

Cheers
Steve

 

[JPloman]

My husband says it was gradually happening over the past month or two, but I just noticed it.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[melosu58]

I have a black sailfin blenny. It was had but now he actually eats flake food. Maybe you`ll be OK