Cleaner Wrasse Primer

michealprater

michealprater

Angelfish Nerd
Premium Member
Please offer your suggestions and advice for keeping these wonderful fish.

Possible items to cover:





Waterflow and tank dimensions

Acclimation and quarantine

Tank mates (good and bad)

Suggested foods

Recommended size at purchase



Please improve the usefulness to the reader by stating opinions as such and actual experiences as such.

Thank in advance to all who participate.
 
Great wrasse which wont turn into a pest,but they are hit or miss. I lost a few during the last few years but I find if you get them past the first 2 weeks mark,then your likely to have it for awhile. I know people that had them for 2 or 3 yrs. Most people will tell you stay away from them. My advice to you is.Do You.If you like it and as long as you do your research then do what you want,Its your money and cleaer wrasse's are cheap and keep all the other fish clean without bothering them! I have 2 of them and had them for a while. If you buy more than one,add them at the same time. I had mine together in a 55g but when I moved them seperately into the 180g its didnt work,even though I put them in a week apart in the 55g and only a day in the 180g(weird).But yea dont be suprise if a bunch of people after me post,DON'T BUY THEM LEAVE THEM IN THE OCEAN TO CLEAN. ''They are not endagered'' So its totally up to you,might not work the fisrt guy but then it might. their hit or miss. When you hit youll appreciate it.Believe me.I have lots of nice fish but when everybody see's the cleaner wrasse they love the blue and black colors.I got lucky and have two with two yellow heads! I dont believe they are the hawaiin breed though.
 
Based off the other fish primers, I do not see cleaners as any different. People kill the difficult Achilles tang and leopard wrasse everyday and they have primers. Primers educate people on particular fish, that is what I hope for. Thanks for sharing your experience.
 
I had a cleaner wrasse for about 6 months, my local pet store had a 90 gallon tank, got 2 cleaners in a shipment on accident, one acclimated well to her tank, ate anything and spent its time terrorizing the other one. Pet store asked me to take it, by that time it appeared to be half dead, very small, dull colors, starved.

I put it in a 2.5 gallon nano, only tank I had running that wasn't my main tank, fed it frozen brine and beefheart (only local options for frozen fish food) for a month, 3-4 times a day. After that ordered some other foods in and moved it to my 33 gallon. It ate frozen and dried seaweed great for six months, looked great, very active then stopped eating entirely and then disappeared over the course of a week.

I think acclimating it to eat without bullies to compete or stress helped initially but ultimately it didn't make it very long even eating great. Tiny foods worked best but it also LOVED the nori and ate pretty aggressively. I had mine with a dwarf angel, maroon clown and gramma. Probably could have used more space, swam constantly and bit me (attempted cleaning?) every time I stuck my hand in the tank.
 
Ive notice the space to swim myself. mine like to constantly swim. The more space the better.I haven't had problems with both of mine eating anything,including pods!
 
Ive never quarantine these fish,I dont believe you would haveto worry about it.I never seen a sick cleaner wrasse. You can do the half hour thing in the bag. Acclimate it then let it go. Ive never had a problem.Also never lost one that way.I usually lost the ones I lost because they were shy or got stuck under a rock. One of mine even got thrown in my 180 by a mistake.I was movin ver rock to cycle my tank,and I didnt know my wrasse was sleepin in it.Well that wrasse didnt get acclimated or nothing to the new tank,he just got dumped in lol by a mistake,I thought he was a gonner,breathing heavy andjust sat at the bottom of the tank ll night. I woke up next morning and he was swiming like crazy happy to be in a bigger tank. They dont grow too big but I noticed they grow fast and get a lil thick,if well fed.The plua about these guys also is they dont bother nothing ,shrimp,scallops,clams,,etc and they bother noone and noone bothers them. And naturallly I think they are better off in Tank wit Tangs,Angels & Butterflies
 
--primer--

I have 2 years experience with these cleaner wrasses. My first one lived for 8 months and died because he went carpet surfing. My second one is currently in my display and living well for over 1 year.

-these fish were pretty easy for me, because i was lucky I received 2 that accepted frozen. Mine liked mysis/brine/clam you name it, they ate it. I would not quarantine this fish, but just visually inspect it. If it had a bulging big stomache than put it straight into DT, if it has sunken stomache than QT is a must. I have heard that if you receive this fish with a sunken stomache odds are he will not make it.
 
I watched The two I bought In the LFS for a week or two,I Figured if they survived their that long, they should be ok. I Also agree with what Sanchoy said! Mine ate everything also from day 1.
 
I've had one for 4 months now and it came from LiveAquaria's DD and they had it for several months prior. It was already eating when I received it so I had no issues with it accepting food. This fish is an extremely active swimmer and loves to clean my Naso, Magnificent Foxface and the Bellus angels ... but my Fairy Wrasses are not too sure about him trying to clean on them.

It eats everything in the tank including nori and algae growing on the front pane of the tank. He also loves to knock down my snails by nipping at their foot causing them to fall off the surface they are attached to. I have not observed if it then continues to pester them when they are on the sandbed, but it's a strange behavior I've noticed.
 
I have a cleaner wrasse for about 10-11 month now :)

He was in a 110g (48x18x30) with my CBB, Foxface, Sleeper Goldhead, Chromis.

I did receive it as a gift from a friend of mine, but he told me that it stayed at the LFS for 2-3 weeks already and was still fat.

He loves to swim ! I just transfered to a 155g 60x30x20 and he's swimming all day long. He does follow my CBB everywhere since it the only fish that let him clean ... My foxface and sleeper goldhead rarely get clean.

For food, he eat : Mysis, Flakes, pellets seems to big, anything frozen mainly but he LOVES nori. He's always the first one on the clip and the last one to leave lol Mine also like to bother snails, especially Nassarius (sp) Snail, if he saw one he gonna try to dig it out by poking aggressively under it ... Never saw him actually kill a snail but sure stress the hell out of them lol
 
I've had my cleaner for over a year. He eats about anything you drop in the tank.

However when you add a new fish (especially if it is a delicate fish) they do have a tendency to pester them for awhile. Luckily mine has plenty of work to do with 40 fish so his pestering is spread out. Most everybody seems to like him though.
 
Just added one today. He has a fat belly and looks good. He is eating brine and rods so far, plus he seems to enjoy cleaning the tangs and angels. The clown fish doesnt care for the cleaning though! :D Tomorrow we try mysis. Hopefully he is a tough one.
 
I have had my cleaner wrasse for over a year. Doesn't clean fish very often, and took to eating prepared foods. It seems that if they will eat prepared foods they will do fine in your tank. If they won't, their isn't enough parasites to keep them fed, and they starve.
 
Mine ate mysis and angel formula today. So far eating everything that goes in the tank. Man I hope I got a good one!
 
I've had mine for more than 6,5 years now :bounce3:

The key thing in my opinion is to introduce that fish in a tank hosting some "big" fishes so that it can reproduce his natural behaviour of cleaning parasites and removing dead skin. Mine lives in the tank with several tangs that come regularly on it's spot to get cleaned :cool:
In addition it eats whatever I put in the tank: mysis, brine shrimps, nori...
 
Re: Cleaner Wrasse Primer

I have a cleaner wrasse in my 55 corner and it does great. Eats every type of food I put in the tank and Evan apears to have fish lined up to be cleaned off, not realy but would seam that way.
 
sohalfr said:
I've had mine for more than 6,5 years now :bounce3:

The key thing in my opinion is to introduce that fish in a tank hosting some "big" fishes so that it can reproduce his natural behaviour of cleaning parasites and removing dead skin. Mine lives in the tank with several tangs that come regularly on it's spot to get cleaned :cool:
In addition it eats whatever I put in the tank: mysis, brine shrimps, nori...
Click to expand...
x2

in a small aquarium cleaner wrasses tend to stress out other fishes by constantly pestering them. Without room to escape this stress usually leads to a very bad outcome for all fishes in the aquarium.
 
i had a cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) for 11 months then the lobster got him in his sleep
then i got anther cleaner wrasse (Labroides bicolor) he lasted 3 weeks
now i got a (Labroides pectoralis) the first time i gave food he started to eat i think he will live
 
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