Supplimental food for Blenny?

[cjj14u]

Well...I made my first of I'm sure many newbie mistakes.....:hammer:
I put a "Lawnmower Blenny" in my tank and now realize I don't have near enough algae growth to support him...
What can I feed him to sustain?
Thanks.

[jenjen]

They will usually eat frozen or dried vegetable foods, like Formula 2.

[Dzel]

mine eats anything. You can try mysis shrimp to get him to eat more or just try attaching a nori sheet to a clip. Mine launches at the sheet as soon as it goes in the tank. lol

[cjj14u]

Should my LFS have the nori sheets?

[jenjen]

You can get nori sheets at most grocery stores, in the asian foods section. It's the same stuff you use to make sushi. Just make sure to get the plain roasted nori, with nothing 'extra' added to it.

[cjj14u]

Thanks Jen!!;)

[romsoccer12]

its tough to get them to eat nori, try rubberbanding it to some rock and than hopefully he will start trying it. rods veggie food is great for them, i kept my large algae blenny on normal rods/mysis for a while with no problems. what size tank do you have?

[cjj14u]

its tough to get them to eat nori, try rubberbanding it to some rock and than hopefully he will start trying it. rods veggie food is great for them, i kept my large algae blenny on normal rods/mysis for a while with no problems. what size tank do you have?


It's a 34 gallon.

[stingythingy45]

Mine makes the trek up to the algae clip and rips hunks off.
Then it chases them down and nfinishes it off.
It will figure out how to eat the nori.

[JMLewis]

Mine will eat everything...from mysis to brine shrimp to forumula 2 to nori.

[arrowheadpuffer]

You guys are lucky, I tried two algae blennies and couldn't get them to eat anything but natural algae growing in the tank. IME its easier to get a fu-manchu to eat krill from your finger tips...

[reeferkiss]

My Starry Blenny is a voracious eater. He attacks algae like a champ everywhere! If I allow a film of algae to build on the front glass, when I get home from work there are hundreds of little kiss marks all over from his mouth. He does go for the flake food or kelp, but loves mysis shrimp.

[terri_ann]

My guy eats everything...algae, nori, mysis & brine shrimp, flakes and on and on...

[dwd5813]

i took a little bit of sheet algae (like nori) and rolled it between my fingers in the tank and my starry blenny would go nuts attacking it. made it like feeding flake. i tried to leave some in there on a clip but he never went after it that way. rod's he would take right out of my hand.

[t00lfan]

We have a lawnmower blenny who is very outgoing and one of my favorites. He lives in a 26 gal bow with a fuge and sump attached. Along with a pair of clowns and a cardinal. We have had him for about a month. He only picks on the rocks and glass though. He is consuming the tiny tuffs of algae growing on the glass. recently his stomach is getting more and more thin! Hes starting to have the shape of a tad pole!..We have bunches of hair algae he wont even go for. tried clips of seaweed. pellets, veggie flakes, mysis, and formula 2. He wont go for much of anything! what should i do?? dont want this little guy to starve! time could be running out...are these guys trainable with any kind of food? Any advice would be appreciated:worried:

[BeloitReef]

Once mine discovered the food the other fish eat, he got HUGE and is a voracious eater. He still eats the algae but also goes after anything he can get when the food drops in.

tOOLfan, lawnmower blennys usually eat only the film algae and not the hair algae. One thing you can try is frozen bloodworms. My recollection is this was the first food mine tried before he started eating everything else. He went after the bloodworms despite the fact that I have plenty of the film algae for him to eat.

BeloitReef

[Mike31154]

I'm on my third Lawnmower Blenny and each one has been different. The first ate only film algae off the glass, rocks and anything else including powerheads. That proved to be his demise. As a newb I hadn't put adequate protection on the intake of the AquaClear powerheads I was using at the time. Came home one day to see the guy sucked up against the intake. One down.

Number two was a real active dude and ate everything. Film algae like number one but also loved flake & any other dried stuff that the feeder dropped in for the rest of the critters. Don't think he ate fleshy stuff like mysis though, can't recall exactly. He ended up carpet surfing.

The current LB is like number one, eats only film algae off the glass, rock, powerheads etc. I keep waiting for him to fall victim to one of my VorTechs since he whales away on them quite regularly. So far the screens on the pumps have been doing their job though, the flow seems sufficiently dispersed at the intakes to prevent any of his parts from getting sucked through or stuck. There's obviously sufficient film algae in the tank that he doesn't find the need to go after any other food. He totally ignores the nori as well whenever I put that in for my tang. There are days where he seems to take a break from pigging out and his belly will become quite empty, but it doesn't take long once he's back at it to get the bulge back.

I guess other than relating my experiences above, about the only advice I can provide is to keep an eye on your guy and see how busy he gets on the glass and rock in your system. If he doesn't fatten up after a few more days, hopefully you'll have success offering some of the goodies suggested by other members in this thread. If that still doesn't yield results, you may have to catch him and take him back or sell him to someone with a larger, established system. Best of luck.

[hazmat319]

We have a lawnmower blenny who is very outgoing and one of my favorites. He lives in a 26 gal bow with a fuge and sump attached. Along with a pair of clowns and a cardinal. We have had him for about a month. He only picks on the rocks and glass though. He is consuming the tiny tuffs of algae growing on the glass. recently his stomach is getting more and more thin! Hes starting to have the shape of a tad pole!..We have bunches of hair algae he wont even go for. tried clips of seaweed. pellets, veggie flakes, mysis, and formula 2. He wont go for much of anything! what should i do?? dont want this little guy to starve! time could be running out...are these guys trainable with any kind of food? Any advice would be appreciated:worried:

This is what happened to mine. He would only eat film algae and he slowly got thinner and thinner. I have to admit.....he was the only fish I ever cried over when I had to flush him:sad2:

[t00lfan]

I tried making a paste with formula 2 on the lr...wont go for it. I watched him eat formula 2 flakes at aquatics before I made the purchase.. All it does is pick at the front glass...driving me nuts....I have tried everything I can think of. Even putting paste on the front glass! if anyone has any ideas of food I could try that would be awesome, or this lil guy isnt going to make it!