What do SW keepers feed their small carnivores? Fish ID!

[knifegill]

My over-enthusiastic friend went beach combing and decided to bring me this weird fish. He told me he found it under a rock. Seriously? You find a fish under a rock and decide to bring it home? What? But now I can't return it since it's been in my tank a day, so what do I feed it?
I know freshwater fish eat everything from worms to scuds to fry and meat, but I've heard it's not safe to feed SW fish the same things that FW fish eat. I have blackworm, scuds, etc., but my new muse is clearly a macropredator. I assume he would eat copepods/amphipods, etc. Should I culture them separately for him, and what else would he need to have? Will he bother the crabs I have in there? What is this thing and will it take dead/pellet food?

 

[Cichlaholics Anonymous]

at this point try everything you have until it actually eats, then once it is feeding regularly try finding a better specialized diet

 

[knifegill]

Sounds like a good start...

It might be some sort of gunnel.

 

[shua71]

Engineer goby?

 

[TMartinez]

No idea what the species is... however I would reccomend doing what I did with my mandarin. i got a breeder net, stuck him in there. started with small live food and worked my way to mysis an pellet food. You can try starting with copepods and then work your way to brine. seems pretty small so its gonna have ot be small food

 

[FLESHY]

That little thing is crazy...it will be sweet if you can get him eating stuff.

A breeder net in which he should be offered anything and everything and as frequently as possible would be the route I would go.

Go back to where he got it and dig around in the muck for some little bugs...sand fleas...whatever.

 

[knifegill]

Thankfully it's warming up so shaking -pods out of the eelgrass should be a breeze. This says they eat algae. Wut? http://www.bms.bc.ca/resources/animalcare/sops/GUNNEL-PRICKLEBACK%20SOP%20Mar%2008.pdf

I'm going to try seaweed, too.

 

[Wiggles92]

Whatever it is, it's a cool little fish. I would pick up a piece of high quality live rock to add to its aquarium in order to give it hiding places and some algae and other things to eat.

 

[FLESHY]

If it is legal, you might even be able to go and get a rock from near wherever you found it so that it will have the flora and fauna that it is used to.

Eager to see if you can keep the lil guy alive, heres hoping!

Algae is the reason why I said try EVERYTHING hahah. I had a feeling this lil guy could be a grazer.

 

[knifegill]

The tank is already established. Currently housing some crabs, an anemone and other hitchhikers. It stays at about 55ºF since I added a tinfoil DIY heat sink to set the tank on. Okay, okay, it's just a stack of crumpled pie tins, but I sought them out and cut them carefully for the purpose!

I used lace rock and it's colonizing. I think the mussels are filtering out a lot of the micro-food. I add green water and that really seems to do the trick, though it's FW...