Hey, thanks for the tip! I had a suspicion I was falling into a sort of trap with the dithering, but I enjoyed doing it too much to stop. I'll be sure to work on better texturing :)
Welcome to PJ! This is a nice looking fish. I think the use of a dither pattern to approximate scales isn't entirely successful, though, much as I appreciate what you're going for. At this scale you probably could actually detail some individual scales (this piece might be a good reference point).
How's this now? :D