Red sea cleaner wrasse?

[SARBoy]

One of the LFS i go to has sevral beautiful red sea cleaner wrasse. They all look weel fed and happy. My question is are they like all cleaner wrasse and need lots of fish to service to stay in top shape or will they eat other food if so what. the fish are about 1" long. I have a Blue dimond Damesel, commom clown(just don't tell him) and a Splendid Leopard Wrasse. will they mix?

 

[Hormigaquatica]

Ive had better luck with Red Sea cleaners than Hawaiians or Indo ones, as far as accepting different foods. But, its limited success; Ive still never seen one live more than 8 months or so. My guess is that even though they are feeding, they may not be getting the same nutrients they would from their natural diet and still slowly starve to death.
As far as compatability, if this is all in your 30tall, Im afraid it would get too cramped. leopard wrasse like a lot of space to themselves, and damsels generally get aggressive as they mature, esp in a small space. Might work for a while, but I think there will be aggression issues eventually

 

[SARBoy]

Cheers mate. My damesel is classed as a more peaceful chap (for a damesel) and the Leopard is only 1 1/2 inches at the moment. however I think the points raised above are enough to put me off the idea. We live and learn that what we realy need is a 200g tank.

 

[Hormigaquatica]

We live and learn that what we realy need is a 200g tank.

I said that at one point and upgraded from a 55 to a 240 gal. Now Im saying I need to go much bigger than the 240 less than a year after I set it up. It never ends Im afraid lol

 

[jmaneyapanda]

I believe red sea cleaners feed on SPS polyps when adults, so do some homework.

 

[Waxxiemann]

I am babysitting a cleaner wrasse (Hawaiian I think) for a friend. He has been in my 90 for about 6 or 7 months and does great. This fish has lived in 4 tanks over the past 5 years in captivity.

In my tank he eats Nori, live mussles, mysis and blood worms and that's all I know for sure. He does do a lot of servicing on my fish so maybe he gets his food from that, it's hard to say. I feed almost exclusivly Spectrum (i feed frozen about once a week)pellets and I've never seen him take that.

He doesn't seem to bother any of my corals either. All in all, I really like this fish and I'll hate to give him back to his owner.

I think it should mix with your fish just fine. Fish display very weird behaviour when around a cleaner wrasse, it's like they know it's a cleaner wrasse. Even when the fish have never seen one before (in captivity that is). I find that really interesting.

This one clearly prefers to clean the larger fish in my tank.

HTH and Good luck!

 

[LargeAngels]

The blue one with black stripes sold as a Red Sea Cleaner wrasse DOES eat SPS. Believe me. I found out the hard way. Had to tear down the whole 120 SPS tank. Left white patches all over my SPS were he had eaten them.

 

[SARBoy]

Cheers, think i will give this fish a miss. Thanks for the advice.

 

[BigJPDC]

I just saw these at an LFS and they were bouncing off the walls, looked like they would be a lot of fun in the tank. I was surprised to not be able to find them at Live Aquaria - is there something up with their import or anything like that?
Do they also clean up live rock or just other fish?

jp

 

[jackson6745]

The blue one with black stripes sold as a Red Sea Cleaner wrasse DOES eat SPS. Believe me. I found out the hard way. Had to tear down the whole 120 SPS tank. Left white patches all over my SPS were he had eaten them.

I wish I would have found this thread :uhoh2: I never saw one of these before and the first search results that I did said reef safe and easy to keep. Of course after I acclimate to the tank I read several threads about how it eats SPS :eek1:
(I have a full SPS reef ). Mine is still a juvenile I believe, but I did see it nip on a stylo. So far not on other SPS. Trying to catch it but it seems impossible.

If anyone has current experience with this fish I would love to hear.

 

[eatbreakfast]

If by Red Sea Cleaner you are refering to Labaricus quadrilineatus, then yes, it does feed on sps polyps.

 

[jackson6745]

If by Red Sea Cleaner you are refering to Labaricus quadrilineatus, then yes, it does feed on sps polyps.

Yup, it started chowing down on my stuff. Just got finished ripping apart the tank to catch him. What a PITA! I learned my lesson :angryfire: