blue streak cleaner wrasse

[Moort82]

Yup and also they since their job is to eat parasites off fish and also part of their nutrition . They say that even if they are eating they will eventually die from malnutrition.

Which is total BS !

That's not entirely true but those that thrive on a captive diet are few and far between. It's the same for other species of fish such as copper bands, idols etc who may eat and look like they are doing well but then suddenly die. Who knows if this is diet related for certain but it's normally suggested as a factor.

You also have to question the usefulness of cleaner wrasse in a closed environment with so few clients. They'd service hundreds of fish naturally and with so few fish to feed in a tank can be a stresser rather than a help. A hungry cleaner will look to fish for food and if they don't have any parasites or want to be cleaned it can really annoy them.

At the end of the day what we keep in our tanks is our own decision but I remember an anecdote from a public aquarium. The tank was tens of thousands of gallons and had several hundred fish plus two pairs of cleaner wrasse (think they were hawaiian so may have been the wakiki). When asked how the tank was doing the reply was really well but we're overstocked by one pair of cleaners.

 

[eatbreakfast]

The trouble is they aren't great shippers so true casualty or longevity numbers aren't easy to find. You also have to consider that those able to keep them for several years are happy to talk about it but lose who lose them aren't so keen to share. More importantly though they do a much better job in the wild where research has shown that removing them can also lead to a large loss of their clients in the area.

But bear in mind that the studies rhat showed the negative affects of removed cleaner wrasses, the researches always had to remove new recruits because new Labroides would repopulate the reefs they were removed from.

 

[GimpyFin]

I've owned both regular blue streak and hawaiian cleaners in the past. The blue streak would eat out my hand and had him for quite a while. The hawaiian on the other hand, wouldn't eat anything. He was pretty active, just never ate. One of those fish that's best left in the ocean, imo.

 

[Silly clownfish]

I had one (coomon bluestreak) for 2 years back in the 90s. It was the third fish I got after the damsels I cycled my first tank with - just to out my fish keeping experience at the time in perspective:uhoh3:. It ate flakes and freeze dried krill and slept inside a cavity of a dead barnacle that I had as a tank decoration. It curled up in there like a dog on a dog bed.

Before it died, it slowly lost some of its blue coloring. It sort of faded as if it was turning old and grey. Given info available at the time I thought it died of old age. In retrospect, now that I have a couple of fish in their teensnd know that is not uncommon, I believe it suffered from a nutritional deficiency from the limited flakes/dried food diet. If I were to try this fish again, I would feed a more varied meaty diet. That said, I don't see another cleaner wrasse in my future.

Kim