Halichoeres exhibiting cleaning behavior

effin

New member
Has anybody observed any of their Halichoeres wrasses cleaning any of their other tank inhabitants? I think I just saw my radiant wrasse cleaning my potter's angel. I just caught the end of it as I glanced over at my tank. The potter's was on his side along the sandbed and it looked like the radiant picked something from his flank. Almost as soon as I looked over they swam in separate directions. I'm not positive that is what I saw, but I think that's what happened.

The angel has only been in the display tank for 1.5 months. The wrasse has been in there for a year and I have never seen this with any of the other fish. I wouldn't really expect to see it clean the clowns or the melanurus wrasse, but maybe my foxface.

I'm interested to know if others have seen similar behavior as I've read that this has been documented for some Halichoeres species.
 
That's normal behavior for Halichoeres, not sure if it was documented for H. iridis (and I am assuming that's what you mean by radiant wrasse), but it has been documented in several species.
 
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