P. ocellatus crustacean killing machine!

kelhuffman

Premium Member
Great article on wrasses! May I be the first to confirm your assertion that there's no mystery in the P. ocellatus eating habits! :0

My 5-bar/mystery wrasse is by far the most beautiful fish I've kept. After a year in captivity it has doubled in size and is now a rotund 2.5 inches long. 4 months ago I introduced him to the delicacy of peppermint shrimp, after a vein attempt at aptasia control. Then I lost a cleaner shrimp. But the other cleaner was around so I bought it a new mate. BIG mistake - the 5-bar dissected the introduction in 5 seconds flat, and after discovering how tasty cleaner shrimp are he went after the 3 year old cleaner that was left, with some assistance from my fridmandi psuedo and some cheering from my flame hawk! My golden CB remains, probably only because he has some claws to defend himself. The sally lightfoot chases the 5-bar more than the other way around so that relationship seems to be in check.

These are great fish, but they are not "reef safe" if you consider crustaceans to be part of your reef!

Oh yeah, and what happened to my neon goby???? hmmm......
 
thanks kelhuffman!

yes, it is unfortunate that such a small, beautiful wrasse can be so destructive. makes me appreciate leopard wrasses that much more :)

henry
 
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