Ecsenius bicolor
Two-color blenny, a little anxious, recognizable by their bright colored lips.
The two-color blenny ( Ecsenius bicolor) in the tropical Indo-Pacific comes from the Maldives to Micronesia, north to the Ryukyu Islands and south to the Great Barrier Reef off. He lives in lagoons and coral reefs with algae and coral growth at depths of one to 25 meters in front. He is one of the most commonly imported to aquarium purposes blennies.
Features
The fish is a maximum of eleven to 13 inches long and comes in three color forms. In the most famous of the front body slate gray rear body is orange-red. This mimics the morphs equipped with long canines blenny Enchelyurus flavipes after ( Bates'sche mimicry ). In another morph, a white longitudinal band pulls in the middle along the side of the body. Above the lateral band extends a black longitudinal band which can also be interrupted, below the white fish are gray. Orange is only the upper tail fin shaft and the middle rays of the caudal fin. The third color shape resembles the harmless black blenny ( Ecsenius namiyei ) and is colored completely dark.
The long, continuous dorsal fin of the two-color fish mucus is supported by eleven to twelve hard jets and 15 to 18 soft rays in the anal fin there are two hard jets and 17 to 21 soft rays. In older males the upper and lower fin rays of the dorsal fin are extended filamentary.
Way of life
Two-color blenny are revier forming and each other very incompatible, even against Putzerlippfischen, probably resemble too much the striped morphs. Only for propagation tolerate a male, the presence of a female. Two-color blennies inhabit narrow, tubular cavities in the where they spend them first backwards into swimming with the tail and the night and other rest periods. They feed mainly on microalgae and very short green algae, which they scrape off with their comb-like teeth of stones and dead corals.
Reproduction
Two-color blennies spawn in the burrows of the males. Prepare spawning females get a bright front body. The male tries to lure them into his cave by swimming into it again and again. The female follows after some time and lays its eggs on the walls and the ceiling. A spawning process can take up to three hours. Meanwhile, the male swims over and over again to fertilize the eggs in the burrow. After spawning, the male chases the female away, but can still spawn with other females. From each female a few hundred eggs are laid, which are flat, oval and a size of 0.75 x 0.5 mm have. The male operates brood care by the nest fanning fresh water. Alien fish are chased out of the area 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.