Two-colored slimy fish

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Two-colored slimy fish
Two-colored slimy fish, a bit fearful, recognizable by the brightly colored corners of the mouth.

Two-colored slimy fish, a bit fearful, recognizable by the brightly colored corners of the mouth.

Systematics
Ovalentaria
Order : Blennioidei (Blenniiformes)
Family : Slimy fish (Blenniidae)
Tribe : Comb tooth slime fish (Salariini)
Genre : Ecsenius
Type : Two-colored slimy fish
Scientific name
Ecsenius bicolor
( Day , 1888)

The two-colored blimp ( Ecsenius bicolor ) occurs in the tropical Indo-Pacific from the Maldives to Micronesia , north to the Ryūkyū Islands and south to the Great Barrier Reef . It lives in lagoons and coral reefs with algae and coral stocks at depths of one to 25 meters. It is one of the most commonly imported slime fish for aquarium use.

features

The fish is a maximum of eleven to 13 centimeters long and comes in three color forms. In the best known, the front body is slate gray and the rear body orange-red. This morph imitates the long canine fish Enchelyurus flavipes ( Bates'sche mimicry ). Another morph has a white longitudinal band in the middle along the flanks of the body. Above the longitudinal ligament there is a black longitudinal ligament, which can also be interrupted; below the white one the fish are gray. Only the upper caudal fin stalk and the middle rays of the caudal fin are orange . The third color form is similar to the harmless black slime fish ( Ecsenius namiyei ) and is completely dark in color.

The long, continuous dorsal fin of the two-colored mucous fish is supported by eleven to twelve hard rays and 15 to 18 soft rays, the anal fin has two hard rays and 17 to 21 soft rays. In older males, the upper and lower fin rays of the dorsal fin are drawn out like filaments.

Way of life

Bicoloured slimy fish form territory and are very intolerant to one another, also to cleaner wrasse , which are probably too similar to the longitudinally striped morph. A male only tolerates the presence of a female for reproduction. Two-colored slimy fish inhabit narrow, tubular cavities into which they swim backwards with their tail first and where they spend the night and other rest periods. They feed mainly on microalgae and very short green algae, which they scrape off stones and dead corals with their comb-like teeth.

Reproduction

Two-color slime fish spawn in the males' living tubes. Females ready to spawn have a pale front body. The male tries to lure them into his cave by swimming into it again and again. The female follows after a while and lays her eggs on the walls and the ceiling of the cave. A spawning process can take up to three hours. Meanwhile the male swims into the cave to fertilize the eggs. After spawning, the male chases the female away, but can spawn with other females. A few hundred eggs are laid by each female, which are flat oval and have a size of 0.75 × 0.5 mm. The male takes care of the brood by fanning the clutch with fresh water. Foreign fish are chased out of the vicinity of the cave. At a water temperature of 27 ° C the larvae hatch after nine days, at 25 ° C after two weeks. They are then 3.5 mm long.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ecsenius bicolor  - album with pictures, videos and audio files