Red Spotted Sand Perch?

[mr_X]

at the LFS tonight. they have some nice fish there, including, but not limited to- a red spotted sand perch.
he watched me as i walked by the tank, no fear, and followed me with his beaty eyes, as he breathed somewhat heavily in and out of his rather large mouth lined with some impressive, razor sharp teeth.
so i figure "hey, this guy would be great for the 125 FO we are putting together!" the OWNER of the LFS says "hey, this is completely reef safe" i told him that has to be a mistake, i mean after all, what are those pearly whites for? he tells me he's in the blenny family, and he just eats meaty foods and very small fishes and copapods in the wild.
i still question his expertise, so he jumps on the pc and does some while-u-wait research to make sure. "yeap, he's totally reef safe".
me, being the airheaded stooge i am, tossed him in the reef.
immediately he tracks the chromis.....nothing...nothing....nothing....then whamo, he tries to swallow my 3 inch engineer goby whole!
luckily he spat him out and he seems to be ok for the time being.
my question in all of this is:
does anyone have any experience with these?
is this just a "new surroundings" burst of aggression?...or do i have to remove 80 pounds of rock to get this little #$%@*& out?
i'll post a pic tomorrow Am incase the name doesn't ring a bell.
cool fish, just...alittle on the aggressive side i think.

btw..i think his scientific name is Parapercis schauinslandii

 

[mr_X]

well, it's the morning. no fish are missing. i have some pretty small emerald green crabs that i am not sure about. my shrimp are intact.
i have an extremely small watchman goby that is fine.
and here is the fish in question:

 

[Anonymous]

P. schauinslandi are not entirely reef safe. While it may harass smaller fish it's doubtful it will eat them. They will eat smaller shrimp and other smaller crustaceans such as copepods and amphipods.

Regards,
David Mohr

 

[mr_X]

thanks. so should i take him out lickity split, or wait and see?

 

[shavo]

I considered one of these guys the other day but they looked a little on the mean side. anybody know how big they get? if this fish gets any size to it it might cause alot of problems

 

[mr_X]

says 5 inches....who knows. i'm gonna whip out the deep sea rod and strap myself in the fighting chair. :?

 

[yiliyang]

I made the same mistake as you. I actually did some research for it before buying. It is said that they are reef safe, but they are NOT. I fed mine mys id shrimp and brine, but this morning I saw him take a huge bite off of my nerite snail, it now has a piece of flesh missing from its foot. I then inspected my stocks closer, I found that the mantle on my clams has missing pieces. I also recall now that my algae blenny has a chuck of fin missing as well.

I will have to get him out of my 55 reef tank somehow. It will not be easy as he darts so fast all the time. Let me know how you get yours out.

Yili

 

[mr_X]

mine got ich. so..he was feeling kinda "under the weather", so it was real easy to take him out of the reef. he resides now in the hospital tank for a month, if he survives it, then it's in the FOWLR tank he goes.
when he was at his full potential, i had the most luck (almost got him!), with one of those clear plastic square things they use at the lfs to catch and/or hold fish until they are bagged. i don't think they see transparent things too well. if you chase him with the net..he may run right into one of those.
now i have to remove my coral beauty- this fish is worse than the sand perch. he is relentlessly attacking my sailfin tang

 

[shavo]

what red spotted sand perch?

 

[mr_X]

yeap..shavo. we must bow our heads for "perchy", he didn't make it.
now that sailfin tang has ich too.
i'm gonna lower the salinity bigtime.

 

[yiliyang]

Sorry to hear about your ich out break. I am a newbie at this saltwater thing. I got a blue tang that was covered head to toe with ich 3 days after getting to my house. I was freaking out, but feeding with garlic juice really helped. I had a UV sterilizer running also. I think if you change salinity it will be very stressful on the fishes and that will make them more prune to ich.

Good luck.

Yili

 

[shavo]

i kinda of agree with ying yang here. it is more stressful for the fish lowering the salinity, try a cleaner wrasse and the cleaner shrimp
also there is some stuff that I have used in the past "reef safe" ich meds , you might want to look at it. I have used it with out taking out any snails hermits shrimp or corals and nothing has had any negative effects from the product. @413
just a suggestion incase you feel desperate.

 

[shavo]

http://www.exoticfish.com/index.cfm

open the link the first page says, got ich?