Another yellow tang.

[terrypercula]

I'm by no means saying a cleaner wrasse or shrimp is a silver bullet solution what I was saying is they're things one can do to help prevent parasites and keep fish healthy. And out of curiosity why avoid a cleaner wrasse? I've heard they are difficult to keep but I've had no problems with it or the tang.

 

[tmz]

I've never kept a cleaner wrasse( except a sick one ,kept for a friend to treat it. It died) ,so I have no longterm first hand experience with them. However,
Scott W. Michael presents these assesments in his book "Marine Fishes":

Blue streak Cleaner wrasse (Valenciennes):

" Difficult to feed. May accept meaty foods...
An occasional specimen will nip and irritate teh mantles of tridacnid clams...In general, most aquarists are well advised to avoid cleaner wrasses....they have low survivl rates in captivity..."

Red Sea Cleaner wrasse: (Larabicus quadrilineatus) :

"... typically defies the best husbandry efforts of aqaurists...Adults will eat small-polyed stony corals;young are not destructive..."

There are a number of other species ; it would be helpful to know which one you have, but in general as a group they fare poorly in captivity; I suspect some worse than others.

I have kept cleaner shrimp ,skunks(lystmata ambionenesis) and bloods( lystmata debelius) before I kept some of the wrasses and other fish that like to rear em up. Neither did any good for ich control back then. While they engage in grooming behavior ,there are studies out there that show they don't eat ich( crtocaryon irritans. Some suggest they may irritate the fish by picking at ich caused exit wound. The bloods also eat coral polyps from time to time and the skunks can irritate coral as they pick food from them. Both are cool and colorful though;I'd keep them in the right aquarium for the interesting behavior and color if they lived a little longer than the average 2 year lifespan.

 

[terrypercula]

Blue streak wrasse. He's an absolute pig. Eats mysis, munches seaweed, and picks on pods. So far so good but I guess I wouldn't trust it with what you just said. But I do like my wrasse a lot. But again there is no silver bullet there's a lot you can do though to keep tangs healthy.

 

[tmz]

I might try a blue streak in a tank without a clam. I like the color and activity . There hasn't been any ich in my tanks for years and I wouldn't use it for that anyway.
Michael's does rate it as the "most common and durable of the genus" but also notes: " even this species wil fare poorly unless kept with a large community of fishes from which it can browse mucus and parasites. This species is more likely to accept substitute foods ,although not with gusto..." The tank I have in mind has two large tangs and a large butterfly along with a pair of clowns and a damsel it might enjoy foraging on.

Gary's point is well taken and gives me pause ,though. With a small population a cleaner wrasse could irritate a fish mercilessly.

 

[terrypercula]

I'll say this my cleaner is hands down the most active fish I ever owned and just in general fun to watch. As I type this I'm watching cruise in and out of my rocks.

 

[reefboarder]

The first tang was from a tanj tear down. Both fish stayed 1 week in the store while I prepared the water and qt to adjust temo and salinity to match the store. The first yt just bit it unexpectadly and the second was a process that I unfortunatly got to witness. Both came from the same store, both looked good at the store and bothe were eating readily. I fed both of them Hikari seaweed extreme and the ocean nutrition herbivore formula, along with small pieces of nori. The first fish was going to spend time in qt and be treated, I was talked out of that to use the transfer method because it seemed to have worked out well for many others.