PhD on the collection of the cleaner wrasse

[Planoi]

Hi,

I have received this e-mail from Steve Box who is doing a PhD on the collection of the cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) for use in marine aquaria. He is at the University of Queensland (Australia) and supervised by Dr. Lexa Grutter, an expert on cleaner wrasse.

I think that we are in a good position to assist him with his endeavor.

here is the e-mail:

Dear Win,

You may remember that I wrote to you back in September concerning the use of cleaner fish in marine aquariums. I am now writing a peer review paper on the subject and was wondering if you could help with some of my enquiries.

The paper is about the use of cleaner wrasse in marine aquaria and the possible effects that their collection from coral reefs may have on the reef fish ecology. As so little has been done it is mainly conjecture, but I am interested in anecdotal evidence of their cleaning and parasite removal behaviour in captivity in addition to any promotion they receive from the aquarium trade i.e. claims that they are beneficial to other fish in aquaria.

I would be very grateful if you could send me any information you have on Labroides dimidiatus or any links to aquarium dealers who promote their use so that I can incorporate this into my research.

Thank you in advance for your assistance, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Steve Box
(steveinbox@hotmail.com)

I will inform Steve of this thread so that he could monitor it.

[DgenR8]

I don't have much to add to this thread, but i'm curious to see where it goes.

[intekhab]

Hi,
While back I bought two Cleaner Wrasse. They were one of the most active fishes I've ever seen. As soon as I put them in my tank, they started cleaning my Scopas. Not to mention, they started freaking some other fishes, as they were wondering what the heck those fishes were doing.

Then suddenly I lost one. I just didn't see it anywehre. Anyway, figured, let's utilize the Internet and I ran across Reef Central and found out how hard it is to keep this fish.

Later I lost my other wrasse too. So, IME, this fish do not do well in our captive system because we simply cannot offer their diet. Even thought my wrasse often took regular meaty food, but he still didn't make it.

Anyway, checkout the following few threads.....

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread 3


Thread 4


Regards,

Intekhab

[jimi]

I have to disagree with them being hard to keep based on my experience with them. The one I have now I have had for 2 1/2 years and the one before him 1 1/2 years until it jumped out. Mine eats anything brine, mysis, flake, seaweed selects you name
it.

[3_high_low]

You can see some more banter about this topic in this thread. I've had brief correspondence with Dr Grutter, an email from her is posted in this thread. She also spoke of someone doing a study on this topic, she must have been referring to Steve Box.

http://www.reefcentral.net/vbulletin...hlight=grutter

This will be interesting!

BTW, is this the same Steve Box, president of the Gridiron club?
(I searched his name)

[sharkdude]

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/labroide.htm

I was just researching cleaner wrasses yesteday and the above link is Bob Fenner's views on keeping them; he is against it.

Based on this and other info I found, I have decided not to purchase this fish despite my desire to acquire one.

How's that for info and my conservation ethic influencing my aquarium trade purchases!? If only we as a community of well informed, ethical hobbyists could exert more influence over the trade as a whole...

[Agu]

Early in the hobby, prior to learning the environmental impact caused by removing this fish, I purchased one. It did clean other fish, primarily a yellow tang. It was an undemanding and voracious eater, taking just about anything fed to the tank. Just like many others experienced, it eventually "jumped" after two+ years of captivity. I now have skunk cleaner shrimp.

Agu

[DEUCE BIGALO]

A buddy of mine got one but couldn't get it to eat. He was going to put it in the freezer until I came to the rescue. I put him in my tank and after almost a year and a half, he has become my favorite fish and my biggest eater. He eats ANYTHING including my hand. lol. He will eat till he looks like he's pregnant. His color is more vibrant than any I've seen at any of the lfs's. I was worried that his appetite would prevent him from cleaning fish but he still does his normal maintenance. One strong suggestion I would give to any potential cleaner wrasse owners is to buy a small barnacle setup for them to sleep in. They take to these well and form a cocoon on the top at night. I personally feel this little security he had was the deciding factor on him being happy. FWIW

One thing I like about this fish is they take out the little food particles in the water before they hit the sand.

I'm not sure if I would recomend one to people but if this is a fish you are determained to get MAKE SURE it eats food at your lfs. and pick up a 6 dollar barnacle.

[cal3v]

I ahd one for a month and it ate like no tomorow. It died from a weird ulcer on the skin, close to the head.

[dc]

I've had mine for almost a year now. He also eats anything. Very fat. The weirdest thing he does is scraping the algae off the glass.

[Sicklid]

I have had two. The first one was doing great until he brushed against my Bubble tip anemone. He died a day later. The second one is also very active, and he won't even hardly let me get the food under the water before he is all over it. He reminds my wife and I of a little spastic dog named Dot that the inlaws have, so we kinda laugh when we talk about the Wrasse. It is funny because he will follow me all around the tank. Either he is hungry, or I was thinking that he might want to clean the parasites off of my face.

[DgenR8]

Hey Sicklid,
[welcome]

[JSM]

I've had mine for 2+ years and he eats everything put in the tank including nori and Golden Pearls. He does clean the other fish on a regular basis, I see him do this daily. When I added a wild caught tang he went nuts over it.

Janna

[iloveinn]

What size tank do you guys have them on? That might affect the population of fish, hence population of food it can eat.

[Bart]

I also purchase a cleaner wrasse when I first added tangs to my reef tank. I had mine for 2+ years and it was eating everything except dried pellets. It would eat brine shrimp, seaweed selects, blackworms, daphnia, marine cuisine cubes, bloodworms, flake food. It jumped out of the top of the tank one weekend while I was gone.

One observation I noticed is the cleaner wrasse was tough on my snail population. I attributed a lot of losses of snails to either starvation or some "bad" algae (if there is such a thing). Anyway, after loosing my cleaner wrasse I have lost very, very few snails. I had observed that the snails rarely used their antennae. Now my snails run around and you can see their antennae. I had seen the cleaner wrasse nip at the snails a lot but never put much weight into it being a stress on the snails. I read an article or post by Ron Shimek that said the cleaner wrasse might be causing the snails to bleed to death since they will constantly nip at the snails.

This is probably getting off track but that is my experience with the cleaner wrasse I had. I would recommend anyone that has them to keep some type of cover over the tank, as they like to jump. Some type of egg crate material like that used for fluorescent lights on suspended ceilings would work well.

[FredB]

Might be a wee bit off-topic, but as far as wrasses in general are concerned, they're pretty heavy feeders. My female Scott's Fairy Wrasse, who I'm pretty sure isn't considered one of the "cleaner wrasses" eats just about anything as well. She's quite colorful, and eats frozen m.y.s.i.s. shrimp, enriched brined shrimp, live brine etc. She's temporarily in the tank with my three seahorses (35 hex), but doesn't seem to bother them. My seahorses eat the same things, and they're all eating fine. My male is the only one who won't eat frozen (yet!) and is fed live ghost shrimp. That works out alright since the ghost shrimp are too big for the fairy wrasse to eat, though she does check them out before leaving them alone.

Fred

[brad]

I was wondering if you (or someone else) could provide some clarrification on the evironment impact of taking these guys. Everyone says they negatively impact the environment since they don't do well in captivity. I don't think that is relevant: fish that do well in aquariums still are removed from the environment, so the impact is the same. If our hobby has caused a significant decrease in populations of these fish, even in certain areas, I wouldn't keep one. If they haven't, I think people would be more open to discussing them, and trying one in a tank with lots of fish, where they may do well. I bet a PhD candidate would be better able to answer this question than most aquarists.

[FredB]

From his original post, I caught maybe a tiny whiff that he may be wondering about the success of aquarists for different reasons than just our rather unscientific opinions of cleaner wrasses, such as the possibilty of aquaculturing them for replacing depleted wild populations. Be creative!

[Bart]

From what I have heard, seen, and understand on the reasoning it is bad to take cleaner wrasses from the wild has to do with the job they perform in their natural environment. In the wild the cleaner wrasses remove parasites from other fish. If you remove enough cleaner wrasses then parasites go unchecked and other fish populations are impacted.

Again this is what I have read and assimilated on the subject.

HTH

[newkie]

I've had mine since '98. I don't know eactly what the question is, but I'd be happy to answer any that your friend may have via email.

[Schism]

As a newbie in the reef keeping realm I purchased two, on the advice of LFS owners. They both lived a while before parishing. It is recognized that these fish have a poor survival rate in captivity. Due to this I can't understand why alternatives are not suggested in every case. If you want a fish, get a neon goby. They are easily obtained, captive raised and eagar and willing to clean the bejeezuz out of your fish. Cleaner shrimp will gladly take care of some parasites as well. The simple fact that the question is brought up concerning natural populations should force any ethical person into buying the others. From obvserving the fish I have had the neon goby far surpasses any of the cleaning efforts of the cleaner wrasse. The cleaner shimps do as well or better IME.

[Jack G]

>>>Due to this I can't understand why alternatives are not suggested in every case. If you want a fish, get a neon goby. They are easily obtained, captive raised and eagar and willing to clean the bejeezuz out of your fish. Cleaner shrimp will gladly take care of some parasites as well. The simple fact that the question is brought up concerning natural populations should force any ethical person into buying the others. From obvserving the fish I have had the neon goby far surpasses any of the cleaning efforts of the cleaner wrasse. The cleaner shimps do as well or better IME.<<

I usually recomend cleaner shrimp, but some fish consider them snacks. I used to have Neon Gobies-my first pair died of ich. My second pair was bitten in*half*-my banded coral shrimp was suspected. I like neons, but they aren't the best of cleaners-captive bred ones aren't as good-they hop on the fish but don't really clean.

As for Cleaner Wrasses, my first one lasted about 3 years. His replacement has been going for 8+ years now.
I remember 13-14 years ago,when I was told not to buy SPSs, since they wouldn't live long-times change.
For all this talk of environmental friendliness, how many here actually have eco-friendly tanks? How many have only aquacultured rock, sand, corals,fish, inverts etc.?
It can be done, but how many actually do it?
Just my 2 cents,
Jack

[FredB]

FWIW, I currently have two black mollies and an oscellaris clown in my 30g tank. I *know* that the clown is from ORA, and I'm pretty sure mollies are tank-raised nowadays as well. My LR, cowrie, 3 peppermint shrimp and 3 hermit crabs I'm pretty sure are wild-caught. If they were available captive-bred, would I buy them? Darn right I would. I'm certain that it will only be a matter of time as well. It's just like spending a few extra bucks at a store for a healthier fish than the shop down the road has. I'm in the process (albeit slow-moving) of tank-breeding clownfish and seahorses, with the intention to sell them at somewhat of a discount over wild-caughts. Once I have the hang of that, I will be moving on to cardinalfish as well.

The most recent Fish and Aquarium magazine had an intro article about captive-bred Centropyge species (specifcally, Fisher's and Flame angels) that I'm following with interest. Pygmy angels are one of my favorite fish, and if there's a chance at them being captive-bred, darn right I'm gonna try sometime!

Fact of the matter is, the neon cleaner gobies are tank-bred, and you can go through a large number of them finding just the right one, and not impact the natural population one little bit. Can't say that for cleaner wrasses...yet.

Fred

[organicreefer]

lmao
do a search on ALL the boards for ALL the discussions about cleaner wrasses.
INVARIABLY you will see a common theme.....
MANY responses from people who have the wrasses(l. dimidiatus) for extended periods, and reporting they eat just about anything.
and then there are the responses from all the people who "know better" ,second hand of course .
ive had had nothing but success with l. dimidiatus,and find it to be a pretty hardy fish,and THE BEST cleaner by far ,that you could have in youre aquarium.
sorry guys
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM
if there are problems with the survival rates (which i still have yet to seeanything substantiated)it must be capture and collection methods,or maybe they dont ship well??i dont know.
but OBVIOUSLY(go ahead read those threads i dare you ) they do fine once acclimated.
my.02

[Agu]

My experience with the l, dimidiatus is that it ate and did well in captivity.

That's not the issue though !! There are some very real concerns that cleaner wrasses are a pivotal species in the reef, the real reefs not our boxes of water. Current opinion is that the removal of these fish negatively impacts the healthy and stability of fish populations. I can't say that this has been proven but there's enough anecdotal evidence for me to not buy this or any other cleaner species.

Perhaps Steve Box or Dr Grutter would care to comment on this.

Agu