Reason not to get a Cleaner Wrasse?
- Thread starter Tennyson
- Start date
I have one and i find it great they are poor shipers so i would get one from a local fish store where u can see it.. I have lots of stuff in my tank and my bioload is rather heavy but my filtration is above par. So between feeding my other stuff he gets plenty to eat .. i have found they will eat live baby brine shrimp and some times kent zooplex but he does love choped squid and the partical dust from normal tropical fish flakes.
mine zooms in and out of cave work realy fast .. i had to put a peace of temperd glass on my aquarium top to keep him and my fary wrasse from jumping out. If keeped in small aquarium i have seen these things just barly move around... kinda blandly looking around .. where when there in a bigger aquarium they realy zoom around...
my local FS keeps these in there new fish tanks and new coral tanks and they seem to love it... i think with these fish if you realy want to keep them long term just have a nice size tank with plenty of rock work and strong bio load (reef setting)
mine zooms in and out of cave work realy fast .. i had to put a peace of temperd glass on my aquarium top to keep him and my fary wrasse from jumping out. If keeped in small aquarium i have seen these things just barly move around... kinda blandly looking around .. where when there in a bigger aquarium they realy zoom around...
my local FS keeps these in there new fish tanks and new coral tanks and they seem to love it... i think with these fish if you realy want to keep them long term just have a nice size tank with plenty of rock work and strong bio load (reef setting)
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mattsilvester
Team RC
As a response to the thread title, and not to the post.... as a FYI....
Reason #1: They are obligate cleaners, and without sufficient "flesh" to clean, they most often die within a few months.
Reason #2: Unless you have a big tank, and lots of big fish, the cleaner wrasse will harass its tanksmates in an attempt to clean them when they don't want to cleaned. Its kind of like the door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales man..... a right royal PITA.... if you want a vacuum cleaner, you'll go to a shop and buy one! Same with wrasse, the others are suppsoed to visit him when they want it, not the other way round.......
Reason #1: They are obligate cleaners, and without sufficient "flesh" to clean, they most often die within a few months.
Reason #2: Unless you have a big tank, and lots of big fish, the cleaner wrasse will harass its tanksmates in an attempt to clean them when they don't want to cleaned. Its kind of like the door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales man..... a right royal PITA.... if you want a vacuum cleaner, you'll go to a shop and buy one! Same with wrasse, the others are suppsoed to visit him when they want it, not the other way round.......
chrisstie
Premium Member
I would invest in a cleaner goby before a wrasse, even if their survivability in shipping improves from different locales.
Unless these fish hold potential to be aquacultured by great companies like ORA, they should be left in the wild.
Imagine having a giant stockpile of vaccine for, I don't know, lets say the flu just for an example. This giant stockpile is concentrated in certain areas over in Africa, Indonesia etc. Now imagine we start collecting lots of these from an area but instead of treating the flu (lets call that maybe Public Aquarium sized tanks where they could be sustained easily) they are thrown in the garbage (Here where small tanks, ignorances, withering away, and any other reason they dont do well save for the few exceptions)
Eventually there will be a negative impact despite their breeding in the wild.
These are the fish that keep the balance in the wild to keep away infection, parasites etc.
If you have one and its doing well I tip my hat to you, but it would be nice to see a movement in hobbyists and LFS alike to show too little interest in these fish to make them worth collecting.
Unless these fish hold potential to be aquacultured by great companies like ORA, they should be left in the wild.
Imagine having a giant stockpile of vaccine for, I don't know, lets say the flu just for an example. This giant stockpile is concentrated in certain areas over in Africa, Indonesia etc. Now imagine we start collecting lots of these from an area but instead of treating the flu (lets call that maybe Public Aquarium sized tanks where they could be sustained easily) they are thrown in the garbage (Here where small tanks, ignorances, withering away, and any other reason they dont do well save for the few exceptions)
Eventually there will be a negative impact despite their breeding in the wild.
These are the fish that keep the balance in the wild to keep away infection, parasites etc.
If you have one and its doing well I tip my hat to you, but it would be nice to see a movement in hobbyists and LFS alike to show too little interest in these fish to make them worth collecting.
FunkieReefJunkie
Member
These are concerns I have as well. Unless there is actual evidence we are not making a dent in the population by collecting them in African waters then I can see no justification for changing our philosophy. It's too bad though, as I remember reading an article on cleaner shrimp in which it was stated by the author the parasites they remove from the fish are rather specific and limited. It would be a tremendous asset if someone like ORA attempted to breed these.
Tennyson
Active member
OK, thanks again, I don't think I would get them even if they eat flake because of the harrasment of other fish since I have a 46 gal with small fish (biggest are my midas blenny and diamond watchman). But thanks anyways.
Chrisstie, you said that I should try a cleaner goby, do you mean a Neon Goby? I am actually planning on getting one. Do they clean fish readily? And I don't think they need frozen or live foods. Correct?
Thanks.
Chrisstie, you said that I should try a cleaner goby, do you mean a Neon Goby? I am actually planning on getting one. Do they clean fish readily? And I don't think they need frozen or live foods. Correct?
Thanks.
