Fish identification...

[Iphis]

Hey all,

My apologies as I do not have a picture, but I'm going to try my hardest here. I had a fish in my tank for nearly two years.

The fish store ID'd him as a "sharknose dolphin", which I knew he was obviously not a dolphin but watching him swim was the most entertaining thing I had seen. Unable to ID him after frantic searching, I ensured he was eating prepared food and bought him.

Now he recently jumped out of my tank when I wasn't looking, while the lid was open and I am overly sad. I have never been this devestated over losing a fish before, I loved this thing but I still have no freaking clue what he was.

So what I am going to try and do is provide some information about his habits and provide a picture whose likeness nearly mirrors him.



Yes, i know that is a remora but I am unsure if that is what my fish actually was. Let me explain....

When I bought him, he was a mere inch and a half long. He would hover in the water as I would describe like a helicopter. This fish would stop in mid swim on a dime, back up, move to the side, any number of things. He was the most agile and controlled swimming fish I have ever seen. Within the two years I had him, he grew to about six and a half inches in length.

At night, he would bury himself under the rocks and the sand. He would arrange my sand however he wanted it constantly. It was a constant process of making sand dunes across my tank and digging under the rockwork. He only did his digging at night, though. Never when the lights or actinics were on. He would pick at the sand with his long, almost dolphinlike nose.

During the day, he would swim around the tank happily, but he was very skiddish if anything came near the tank. He mostly only ate the meaty foods.

At first, I thought he was a neon goby. His growth and the positioning of his eyes gave him away as not being this type of fish.

His eyes were set in the center of his head and a deep silver ring surrounding a black "pupil" at the center of his eye. He could move them around, but they were sunk into his head ever so slightly. This made me think he was not part of the wrasse family either (as most of their eyes seem to bug out of their heads slightly)

His "skin" was, for lack of a better term, like silk or velvet. His coloration is exactly like you see in the picture with minor differences. The stripes and the eye were the same. His stripe, however, continued onto his tail and fanned out ever so slightly.

His side fins were clear, however, and positioned at the center of his body on each side.

The dorsal and the fin underneath him was one long fin that buldged up just behind his head and continued to taper all the way down to his tail. These fins were black but barely noticable. They only stuck up about a CM from his body at the very widest point.

His tail fin fanned out from his body and was all black, except where that whitish-bluish stripe continued on it all the way to the end.

He definately did not have the four fins that you see on the remora in the front (Namely the two that stick straight down from it) and it did not have the flare in the center of the dorsal and bottom fin. He did not have any kind of suction apparatus on the top of his body and he never tried to position himself on the glass in that nature. (There was not one on the bottom of him, either)

His body shape was very similar to the remora, just a bit more round instead of flattened.

I know this thread is "Useless without pictures", not to sound arrogant but if you all could refrain from that comment I would appreciate it. I missed my opportunity to take a picture of him and I am deeply regretting it.

(By the way, that picture is not mine. I used it from a website, as shown on the bottom of the photo, as it is the closest look for the fish I had. I'm not trying to pretend like I took it or anything. www.deepseaimages.com is where I found it, searching for my lost fish and shaker of salt.)

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Iphis

[sir_dudeguy]

thats a cool sounding fish. even the one in the pic is cool lookin. and you said he only got about 6 inches? was that his max size or no? what size tank did you ahve him in?

[Iphis]

Thanks for the reply,

I have no clue what his max size was, he was still growing as far as I could tell.

He was in my 55 gallon tank.

Man I miss him.

[sir_dudeguy]

hmm...do you think he was too big for a 55? thats what i got and im kinda interested in those...also, are those fish above about the same size or bigger? those look huge by the pic, but its proly enlarged

[Iphis]

I'm not sure, he never needed a lot of swimming room. He generally just hovered in place when he wasn't picking at the sand. He never zoomed back and forth unless he was distressed, but all the other fish ignored him. If he had gotten much bigger, he would have needed more room.

The remora, which is in the picture from deepseaimages above, can reach lengths of one meter, which I think is like three feet or so. They're the fish that attach themselves to the bottom of sharks and whales and eat their scraps and parasites.

The resemblence of the coloration and eyes is just so creepy, I don't think he was a remora, but I would not be suprised if he was closely related to him.

Iphis

[Amphiprion]

Do a search on Echeneidae and you will find your fish.

[Iphis]

Thanks for the reply, but I know what the remora is and unless they do not grow their "suction" apparatus until later on in their life, I do not believe it is a remora. It just looks like one.

He never had anything that resembled that oval disk that all of the echeneidae I have seen pictures of on any part of his body...

Iphis

[Sk8r]

Small resemblance to a saltwater catfish, but I don't think they get that big and they don't have the neon stripe.

I know there is a CoralSearch Search Page that enables a user to put in data about the item and get a listing with pictures. Is there any such thing with fishes?

But the advice is good: narrow down to the general family as much as you can [and look at the behaviors and food choices as well as appearance] and go to one of those massive photo-based id sites: saltcorner.com has that kind of info with pix.

[Iphis]

Well, I found him finally

Malacanthus latovittatus... he's a tilefish. Now to find someone who sells him...

Thanks for all your guys' help

Iphis