The "Add With Caution" Fish

krzyphsygy

Active member
Ok, so I have always wanted the "Add With Caution" fish for years and years but knew that they were iffy with certain reef critters. I have kept usually only "Reef Safe" fish, but with my new tank I wanted to try some different fish I have always wanted.
Enter the Candy Stripe Hog Fish (Wrasse), this is a beautiful fish red, white, and black stripes. Whe I saw him in the LFS, I asked the store owner his experience on this fish with skunk cleaner shrimp and he said he was not sure. So right then he grabbed one from another tank and dropped him in there. I thought, wow, thats cool. And the cleaner was fine...no issues with an attack.
Brought him home and for a steal at $40, usually priced at $80-100 bucks. QT'd him for 6 weeks he eats like a pig and very healthy. I put two cleaners in 2 weeks before moving him to the display because I thought if he did go rogue, the shrimp being in the tank first might help there chances of survival. I really love this fish btw.
Well the fish has been in for 2 weeks and out of no where he attacked and killed both shrimp tonight. I feed my fish everyday so I know he was not hungery, and he attacked after his feeding as well. He did not eat them but tore them up pretty bad. They were large shrimp also, they were not small at all.
Kinda ****ed about it, but hey, its a risk if you want to keep "Add with Caution" fish. He appears to be alittle aggressive also. I hope he does not bother any new arrivals in my new fish. I wanted to still add some passive species and really picked him up out of order due to great deal I got on him.
 
I keep not exactly reef safe fish....seems to work fine with lps and softies. However, as you have seen, clean up crew and inverts can be fair game and thus I have none.
 
I have a Blue Head Wrasse for about a year now which has done quite a number on my hermit crabs. It has not bothered my Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp at all which has been in the DT longer. My snails seem fine too.
 
So I guess shrimp are out of the question now. Kinda stinks because I really like the full reef tank with all the inverts. Now if he touches any coral, I might be giving up a very rare fish...lol
 
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