What kinda fish is this?

[Rikko]

(Mods feel free to move this to the hitchhiker forum.. Somehow I thought hitchhiker was a little too loose for this fella)

(CC from my RC post)

Well here's a little background... About 2-3 years ago I was at a mostly freshwater LFS.. I came in one day and saw 3 odd little fish up with the guppies. They were simply "mystery gobies" - so named because nobody knew what they were and at the time I thought their shape mostly matched the brackish gobies I knew.
They looked to me like brackish fish despite being pawned by the wholesaler as freshwater. I thought I'd do 'em a favour and bring 'em home to my brackish tank.
One perished within days - it always had a bad pectoral fin and never improved. The other two were great for a long time. One I lost a few months ago (along with a couple of bumble bee gobies and my awesome white cheeked goby ) in what I suspect was an anaerobic pocket in the sand being kicked up.
So I'm left with this guy.. A few months ago I made an effort to try and get some photos of him and failed miserably. Now I have a substantially better camera and though I can't use it for the life of me, managed to get a few shots of him.

He has about tripled in size since I got him and generally hides. Diet consists solely of frozen bloodworms. SG is 1.009 in that tank.

Having learned a lot about marine fish in the last year, I finally thought to look at him again and he looks an awful lot like a scorpionfish.. Can anybody positively ID him? Is he a marine fish? Do I dare (eventually) add him to my reef or nano?

If any experts have a few possibilities, can you suggest regions of his body I should attempt to close up on and photograph? At this point I just snapped a few macros in the badly-lit brackish tank. If it looks promising I can remove him to a container with bright lighting and snap away.

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Huh. I have never seen anything like this before. A bit of searching came up with Notesthes robusta. It's a brackish water fish that looks pretty similar, but not exactly the same as this fish. All I could find were adult sized pictures.

Hopefully one of our FW experts will chime in here.

 

[kent.robertson]

It's from the species "ugliusfishius"

 

[Rikko]

Thanks Matt.

I also found Notesthes robusta in a book a couple of years ago and it looked promising, but I wasn't able to find any better information or photo matches online.. Praps Google has found more since then.

My reason for dumping it up here is that I was looking around another LFS last week and they had what they called a Leaf Scorpionfish (didn't look like any of the "nice" leaf scorps you generally see in photos) and he looked very, very close. I had thought perhaps he was a species of marine scorpion that had a brackish juvenile phase.. Alas :/

 

[Anonymous]

Here is a good shot from google.

I'm counting the dorsal fin rays as you read this probably...

vs. yours...

 

[Anonymous]

Huh. It's hard to count. But the dorsal fin shape, and coloration and banding on the caudal fin sure look very similar. I'm curious if the pectoral fins on your fish have that nice smooth winged shape also.

I also want to find a good picture of the mouth. But it looks like this could be, at least a close relative of your fish.

 

[Anonymous]

 

[Anonymous]

I noticed RC wasn't much help

BTW, If you like this fish and want a bit more colorful version of it (not at all related but close in looks and behavior), look up Plectranthias inermis. It will stay a lot smaller also, like only 2". Sounds like yours is getting big, and fast. Here is my Plectranthias in some GSPs. It was the first thing I thought when I saw your pic.

 

[Rikko]

I'm pretty sure that's him, now. Thanks again, Matt.

Btw here's a gem of a writeup on him:

The freshwater bullrout generally seen in tropical fish shops is Notesthes robusta and is imported from Australia. It has little to recommend it as an aquarium fish. Besides being inactive during the day and highly predatory, it has venomous spines in the dorsal fin which can deliver a painful sting. Bullrouts are variable in colour and pattern, but most are usually mottled in shades of tan and brown. They grow to about 30 cm (12 inches) in length. Bullrouts are found in fresh, brackish and marine waters around Australia and so will adapt to most water conditions. A specific gravity of about 1.010 is adequate for long term health, and will allow it to be combined with big fishes like shark catfish well able to look after themselves.

Although it prefers live foods (worms, fish and shrimp) it can be weaned onto chunks of meat and frozen foods. One way to coax a bullrout to feed is to dangle chunks of food in the tank close to its face. Tie the food using lengths of cotton -- keep your hands well away from this fish! Wriggle the food about, and with any luck, it will assume the food is alive and make its attack. After a while it should get the idea and be much easier to feed.

Hahaha! Oh man, I love him!

The pics I turned up on the first few pages were the same crap as last time but god bless the image search..

Well, now that I know that I guess I won't be downgrading the tank.. :/

 

[Rikko]

I noticed RC wasn't much help

What, you mean in this case, or in general?

B-b-b-b-ut where else can 50 people tell me what they think they overheard their cousin saying?

 

[Anonymous]

I noticed RC wasn't much help

What, you mean in this case, or in general?

B-b-b-b-ut where else can 50 people tell me what they think they overheard their cousin saying?

:lol:

 

[K9coral]

I want one for my grouper tank.

and

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: RC