Blenny Fish

Blennies are some of the best salt water aquarium fish for beginners because they are inexpensive, full of personality and very hardy. Two of the best choices are the bi-color blenny and the lawn mower blenny. Both of these fish will graze algae in the aquarium and also provide a fun fish to watch. The lawnmower Blenny is most known for its abilities in algae control and is one of the most recemmended fish in the hobby for doing so.

From my personal experience with these fish, I have actually seen these turn an algae infested tank, into a beautiful coral reef. The only negative thing about them is they seem to move things around in the tank. My friend, who had a decent sized lawnmower blenny, used to tell me that he actually lost a lot of coral because the fish would take it and move it somewhere else – He actually had to start gluing his frags when he bought them.

As with most types of fish, it is important to watch the fish when it has been added to the tank just to make sure that he is not disrupting things and getting along with the reef and other inhabitants of the tank.

5/1/2009 – Update – I recently bought myself a Lawnmower Blenny to help clear up an algae problem I have in my tank at the moment. I went to the live fish store and picked out the smallest one I could find as my tank is not very large and I wanted to make sure he wasnt going to bully anything around. So far he has been in the tank for a couple weeks and have not seen him eat any algae off of my rocks. However, he does spend a lot of time cleaning the brown diatom algae that grows in a light, almost see through film on the glass. This is not my ideal function for him as my snails were already doing a pretty good job controlling that, but he does make a pretty interesting addition to the tank. My brothers and sister call him the “dragon fish” because of his odd shape and color.

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