Halichoeres... show some love

yes i know and i really didn't want to voice my opinion so i will stay out of it ,but if you want to read up on some of the acclimation procedures that differ from usual for wrasses only IMO check out the leopard wrasse primer and it may help you understand what i was getting at .
if you QT i would suggest trying to make the tank as close to" decorated "as possable,in this i mean gravel on the bottom and some live rock in it also . they do much better if you simulate nature a bit closer than just a bare QT with nothing in it .you may have to sacrifice some LR if you medicate but that beautiful fish is certainly worth it IMO .
 
iamwrasseman said:
i would not QT the fish as live aquaria has done that for you and he will be much better off in you DT so he can get settled in asap . i have had much better success without Qt on this type of fish .
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Thanks for this. This is what I was really asking, but was afraid people would jump on me for questioning whether to QT or not. I realize it's not a leopard, but the mouth damage etc worries me, and I don't have a great track record with trying to QT fish in a non-sterile environment (i.e. - with sand or LR). The fish do fine, but medicating and ensuring the correct concentrations is just too difficult for me!

I'll think about this over the next few days, but it may go straight into the DT.
 
they are tough for the first couple of weeks ,after that you good to go . i wish you the best and please do what YOU think is best for the fish . its sometimes tough to make the decision of initial acclimation and introduction with such a beautiful and somewhat rare find so take you time and hopefully all will be smooth sailing .he is a beauty !
 
I QT'd mine in a BB tank and my display is also BB and my Red Head is just fine with that. I would QT just to make sure that he is eating after being shipped again. Like I said before, I had a little problem with mine eating and its so much easier feeding just the one fish in QT. Place him in the display too soon and he could freak out and hide and not get enough to eat.
 
So, I think my plan will be to introduce directly to the DT. The only fish in the DT are a trio of flame wrasses (all very small, the male is approx. 2.5"). I think it'll have the best chance going directly in, and I have a lot of faith in Kevin's fish.

The other additions to the tank, a pair of Blueline angels will wait to move from QT until the new wrasse is acclimated and doing well.
 
I didn't intend to track off into a QT discussion.

David, please post some photos of him when he's in your tank. Since they aren't seen all that often it would be a good addition to the thread (along with Bill's).
 
yes some pictures would be great just give him a moment to settle in before you start hitting him with the flash from your camera . with a fish like him i would darken the tank and wrap with towels for the first couple of days to reduce stress on him . leave only the lunar lights on for the first couple of days and it will help him also .
 
Sorry Jacob. Didn't mean to derail, it just kind of happened! I'll be sure to post pictures once he's in and settled a bit. Should be middle-end of next week.
 
Is the consensus that this genus is generally safe for all types of corals, but that they might put some hurt on a CUC in a reef? Also, is there anything you all are doing different with respect to QT that you think is specific to the genus?
 
MJinMN said:
Is the consensus that this genus is generally safe for all types of corals, but that they might put some hurt on a CUC in a reef? Also, is there anything you all are doing different with respect to QT that you think is specific to the genus?
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Very generally speaking they are safe with corals, but recently I have come across a couple of threads where the owners had problems with a Halichoeres nipping at a clam or LPS... so as with everything your mileage may vary. CUC is much more likely to be a target than corals.

At least a couple of us here have QT'd them without sand. My QT is more like an established system with LR, some algae, been running a long time, etc. The term 'decorated qt' was used above... pretty good description. I don't know if this made a difference one way or the other but personally I have had much better success with this type of QT for all fish and corals.
 
iamwrasseman said:
yes some pictures would be great just give him a moment to settle in before you start hitting him with the flash from your camera . with a fish like him i would darken the tank and wrap with towels for the first couple of days to reduce stress on him . leave only the lunar lights on for the first couple of days and it will help him also .
Click to expand...

That's probably a good call. I never use flash... I didn't even think about it.
 
025.jpg
[/IMG] my male rubrocephalus has been with me for about a year now. I'd say he's grown about 1/2" since I got him (5" now). I must have gotten lucky with mine, he was eating at the LFS and comes right to the surface begging to be hand fed whenever I walk into the room. The bottom of my tank is littered with the skeletons of clean up crews past lol. I just toss new ones in now & then and things are fine.

older pic with flash that shows off the colors better
IMG_0310-1.jpg
[/IMG]
 
nice pictures tnyr5 ,thanks for sharing !

Jacob ,its something that we really don't think of when bringing these fish into our aquariums .even on a bigger scale how would we like to live the rest of our lives in someone else's home in a pickle jar being fed rice ? we take a lot for granted and it is truly amazing that most fish deal with aquarium life relatively normal like .i cant imagine they have much thought because if they did they would go insane pretty quickly .
 
yes i have them together a bipartus ,yellow coris, yellow tail coris ,melarinus ,potters ,two chisel tooth ,yellow chest twister wrasse ,and a few cleaner wrasses all together and doing well ,very peacful tank i might say .
 
Well, I finally made the plunge and got the H. melaurus from the LFS. He has been there for two+ weeks and the day I went, I just gave myself three criterias:
1. He looks healthy and active
2. He is eating pellets
3. That he is still there!
And to my happiness, he was doing very well in his sand bottomed cubicle, when I looked in there, he came right up and started squirting water at me trying to get me to feed him. I fed him some Spectrum pellets and he gobbled them right up and begging for more. I told them to bag him and home he came.
I was going to QT him in my bare bottomed, coral skeleton littered 20 gallon chaeto tank, but then I thought that he had been in a cube sharing water with only inverts coral for the past 2+ weeks so I fresh water dipped him for 20 minutes and then placed him in the 55 gallon reef tank with one possum wrasse, pair of aurora gobies, an orange spotted blenny, a tiger wardi goby, a pair of cleaner shrimps and a peppermint shrimp. So far so good!
I have to say that after 2 weeks of having him, I'm regaining my courage with the wrasses again! He is a doll! He comes to the front of the tank everytime to beg for food. He is the MOST interactive wrasse I've ever had! And not to mention, he goes to sleep every night at 9:00 sharp - dives in the sand. So cute! :lolspin:
 
Well, the H. Rubricephalus arrived today. Looks great, and I while I was expecting it to dive right into the sand has been swimming around a bit. Lights are off to reduce any stress, but I will try and get some pictures in the next few days.

Looking very healthy! I'm extremely pleased.
 
Anybody here notice one or more of your halichoeres go to sleep early, as in well before lights out? My Vrolik's used to disappear about an hour before lights out, now it's more like 3-4 hours before lights out.

He's always out and about first thing in the morning (6-ish) and tucked in somewhere by about 6 PM. The last light is off at 10:30 PM. It's been scaring me lately since his "bedtime" keeps getting earlier I keep thinking... "did something happen to him?" and then there he is the next morning waiting for me to saunter over with my coffee!
 
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