Fish-surgeon is the name of a whole family of fish - surgeons from the order of perchiformes. There are eighty species of fish in this family, including blue, striped, white-chested, Arab surgeons and others.
Where does the name come from
Surgeon fish (and sometimes scalpel fish) of these marine life are called for their main characteristic feature - razor-sharp thorns that are located above and below the tail. Pisces use these spikes for self-defense.
Sometimes careless bathers and divers, having decided to touch a beautiful fish, get quite serious wounds. With such an injury, in addition to treating the wound itself, antiallergic prophylaxis is usually necessary, since individual reactions of the body are possible.
What does a surgeon fish look like?
Most surgeons are small in size - up to 40 centimeters in length, on average 15-18 centimeters. True, there is also an amazing nose surgeon that grows up to a meter in length.
Surgeon fish have a not very tall body, large eyes and a small mouth. They feed mainly on algae, sometimes including plankton in their diet.
The color of these fish is very beautiful and varied. So, the whole body of the striped surgeon is painted with bright narrow blue-yellow stripes. The white-breasted surgeon is bright blue with a yellow dorsal fin and a black head. The Arab surgeon looks a little more modest with gray-black stripes and orange spots under the pectoral fins.
Where do marine surgeons live?
Surgeon fish love to live in tropical waters among coral reefs. The blue surgeon is common in the Indo-Pacific region. In the same place, from Africa to Hawaii, you can find a striped surgeon. The white-breasted surgeon is found off the coast of Kenya, Maldives, Seychelles, Indonesia.
The Arab surgeon lives in the west of the Indian Ocean - from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.
Surgeons in the aquarium
Aquarists are very fond of these fish for their bright colors. However, the content of the surgeons is not easy. First of all, fish of this species are extremely demanding on the cleanliness of the aquarium. Its volume, by the way, must be at least 1000 liters. In addition, they compete for territory and are very aggressive towards other fish (in particular, males differ in this).
In nature, surgeons live alone, gathering in flocks only during the breeding season.
In addition, surgeon fish reproduce very poorly in captivity. That is why representatives of the species, not bred in the aquarium, but caught in their natural habitat, are often on sale. Such "wild" fish are very difficult to adapt to aquarium conditions.
