Fairy Wrasse Pairing Question

[Tortuga78]

Hello Everyone,
I recently purchased a pair of Scott's Fairy Wrasses. Unfortunately the male died during shipping. My first question is whether a Scott's Fairy Wrasse female will pair up with any other Fairy Wrasse such as an Exquisite or Lineatus Fairy Wrasse. There are currently no other wrasses in my tank. Thank you in advance!

 

[Ninong]

I don't think you would get a real pair if you tried to put a Scott's and a Lineatus together. What you would probably get would be that the more dominant fish would become male first and it would dominate the other fish, preventing it from becoming male -- except in very large tanks.

How large is your female Scott's now? Is she a Cooks Island variant or an Australian?

My experience was that several years ago I ordered a pair of gorgeous Australian Scott's but the male didn't survive, just the female. I think it was mainly because it turned cold the night they shipped it from Dallas (just 500 miles away) and the box may have been left outdoors for some period of time. The male that died within hours after I got him was 5.5" long. The female that survived was about 4.5" long when I got her but she grew another 1/2" during the next 30 days or so.

The vendor shipped me a replacement supermale five weeks later. It was about 5.5" long. All hell broke loose in my tank after it was introduced. Apparently my female turned male while she was alone in the tank without a male. It took 10 months for things to settle down but I ended up with two male Scott's in a 120-gal tank. I also had a female Lineatus and she remained female due to the presence of the dominant male Scott's. Between the two male Scott's, the original one (originally female) was the dominant male of the two Scott's. Neither of my two Scott's was interested in the female Lineatus at all.

I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.

Scott's are one of the more aggressive of the fairy wrasses. For that reason, I would pair your present one with another Scott's -- either another female (slightly smaller) or a male that is considerably larger. Just don't let a lot of time slip by before you do it -- the sooner the better.

 

[Tortuga78]

Ninong- Thank you for your feedback. After looking at different pictures, I am pretty sure it was a Cooks Island Fairy Wrasse. The female is about 3 1/2 inches. I will definitely start shopping around for the male. Will the Cooks Fairy Wrasse male be aggressive only to another Cooks Fairy Wrasse male or will it be aggressive to any wrasse male? I currently have a 150-tall reef tank. Thanks again.

 

[Ninong]

It would be aggressive with other males of the same genus, but more aggressive with other males of the same species. The aggression dissipates over time. With some fairy wrasses it isn't so bad and lasts only a few days at most but with my particular Australian variant Scott's it was VERY bad and lasted quite some time. It actually killed off the male Lineatus and nearly killed the male Scott's.

If you're going to add a male, I would do it within a few days to a week after you added the female. The longer you wait, the more potential for trouble.

Good luck!

 

[Tortuga78]

I think I will work on finding a male Scott's Fairy wrasse for the female first. These may be the only wrasse I keep in my tank to avoid problems. Thanks again for the advise.

 

[Ninong]

I happened to come across one of my posts about my fairy wrasse problem while searching for something else. It was painful to read. Anyway, here it is if you want to know the details. Someone asked me what had happened and I went through the whole history with her.

 

[snorvich]

I have found Scott's Fairy Wrasses to be incredibly aggressive towards other fairy wrasses. That was an experience I do not want to repeat as I had to remove the pair.

 

[Tortuga78]

I definitely don't want to go through both of your experiences. I appreciate you sharing. I will stick to one pair at wrasse in my tank to be safe.

 

[Ninong]

I definitely don't want to go through both of your experiences. I appreciate you sharing. I will stick to one pair at wrasse in my tank to be safe.

I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression about fairy wrasses in general. I think the problems that Steve and I both experienced were caused by Scott's fairy wrasses and may not be as true of many of the other smaller fairy wrasses.

I remember running searches on Reef Central for any threads having anything to do with fairy wrasses. I wanted to see who was keeping what in which size aquariums. I found many, many hobbyists who were successfully keeping more than one species of fairy wrasse in aquariums smaller than mine. That's what led me to believe that I could keep a pair of C. scottorum with a pair of C. lineatus in my 120-gal tank. In fact, Dr. Hiroyuki Tanaka, an expert in both fairy wrasses and flasher wrasses, keeps several different species in the same tank, although it is much larger than mine.

I think the bottom line is that some fairy wrasse species (especially Scott's) are more aggressive than others, especially full grown specimens. It's one of those caveat emptor situations.