Synchiropus marmoratus

A fish belonging to the family Callionymidae. It lives in coastal lagoons and coral reefs from Delagoa Bay in Mozambique, along the coasts of Africa as far as Sumatra. A colourful, peaceful and fairly hardy fish, suitable for living with small reef fish of other kinds as long as they are not aggressive; recommended for a reef aquarium with invertebrates; in a small aquarium it is advisable to keep only one male, possibly together with a few females. It has a very elongated body, almost circular in cross-section at the front and laterally compressed at the rear; the head is triangular; the mouth, very small, with fleshy lips, sits at the tip of a small tubular snout with several rows of teeth. The eyes are set very high on the forehead and recall the head of a frog; the gill cover has a large spine pointing backwards; the skin has no scales but is abundantly covered with a sticky, toxic mucus. The livery is very colourful; the body is white with red mottling in various shades that extend from the head to the caudal fin. On the pectoral fins, on the other hand, there is a greyish-black patch. The dorsal fin is rich in bright colours mixed in arabesques ranging from red, through various shades of orange, to black. In some cases a temporary darkening of the head can be seen, due to changes in mood. Lacking a swim bladder, it prefers to spend its time resting on the bottom or on the rocks; it prefers to make small hops or short glides; strictly carnivorous, its favourite prey are fish eggs and larvae, small crustaceans, worms and molluscs.

Difficult to settle in, as in the first days it is very shy and fearful; for this reason it would be better to buy specimens already acclimatised by expert hands and introduce them into well-matured tanks. Once well settled in it is carnivorous: in fact it feeds on small bottom-dwelling animals found in the sandy substrate or in the niches of the rocks. It also feeds on live, freeze-dried or frozen food of a suitable size to be swallowed, such as brine shrimp, Mysis, mollusc flesh, Cyclops, lobster eggs, frozen plankton and copepods. More rarely, but possibly, it gets used to eating dry granular food. It is sometimes introduced to combat flatworms, being one of their many natural competitors.

Species sheet by Massimo Ramognino and photo by Andrea Pagni