Top 7 Saltwater Fishes With Personality

The species characters in your tank keep the hobby interesting and bring passion; there are many varieties and loads of marine animals with great character. You can probably try the most inquisitive fish to take food straight off your hand. 

But certain tank inhabitants have a certain Junoesque, so let's look at the top 7 list of such fishes:

1. Anemone Crab

Anemone crabs are some of the reef-safe crabs in the hobby. They have a delightful combination of looking harder than a coffin nail but actually being softer than most of the crabs. They can host anemones, coral-like Hammer Corals. They can also live in pairs. 

2. Mandarin fish & Scooter Blennies

The first thing that will strike you about this fish is just how spectacular they look. You will not find a more beautifully patterned fish in the hobby, but they are also endlessly entertaining to watch. Unlike most free-swimming fish, they bumble around on the sand bed and walk work in short bursts while looking for things to chew on.

No other fish moves like that, so add a real variety to your reef. The downside is that they have quite a high mortality rate. They usually don't accept prepared food. So, they do need an established tank with lots of copepods for them to hunt.

Algae refugium is the perfect place for copepods to breed, and most of the reefer get an audio bed mainly to enable them to keep Mandarins and scooter Blennies.

3. Sand Sifting Gobies

These guys will spend all day plowing a sand bed looking for whatever tasty morsels they can find. They are another difficult to keep fish as they require a mature sand bed packed full of delicious stuff to nibble on. 

But in the right tank, they are hilarious to watch, and they have the bonus of keeping your sand bed all shiny and clean. There are many varieties of sound-sifting gobies, and some are more respectful than others for where they spit out the sand. 

You need to be aware of Gobbies that swim up into the water column before emptying your entire mouth full do sand onto your prices corals.

4. Hawkfish

These guys have a reputation for Decimating invertebrates. But since they are so entertaining that people still love them. The unique thing about this fish is that they have no swim-balled, so they have to perch on rocks, glass, and algae scrapers. Their eyes move independently of one another, and you can be pretty sure that they are keeping one eye on you all the time.

The best thing about them is that they are easy to keep and will easily live in small tanks of 30-gallon or more. 

5. Jawfish

The only reason that these guys don't feature higher on this list is that they need a bit more careful thought to keep them long-term. Supposedly they like cooler temperatures than other reef tank fishes, particularly the stunning blue-spotted jawfish.

But aside from that, they have bags of personality. They often hover just outside their burrows and dart inside at the first sign of trouble. They are a serious wow-factor fish that will reward anyone prepared to accommodate their needs.

6. Shrimp Gobies

There are numerous varieties of this fish and what makes them unique is that they form a symbiotic relationship with Pistol shrimps. Pistol shrimp will spend the day constantly tidying their homes much like your mom used to when you were a kid.

The Pistol shrimp uses a snatching mechanism that it uses to catch its prey. So, you were a loud clicking sound coming from your tank. Don't worry. It is just the shrimp having supper.

7. Blennies

They are peaceful, reef-safe, colorful, easy-to-keep, and best of all they are best of, they are hilarious. They constantly look for holes in rockwork to back in and out, they swim at a funny angle, and it always seems like they are smiling at you.

Some of the Blennies even have the decency to eat algae and will spend the day cleaning your glass and your rockwork. There is tons of variety available, so you can choose whatever Blenny you like the most.

 

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