adding cleaner wrasse to aggressive tank?

[stars&stripes]

Is this a major no-no, or do most fish still recognize the cleaner wrasse in captivity? I've got an 8" panther grouper and a 6-7" inch s&s puffer. Would like to add a cleaner wrasse if I won't just be providing a meal to the grouper. Do you think it would work? or is it a bad idea? Any input appreciated.

thanks.

[NorthFace]

Cleaner Wrasse dont do well, at all, in captivity...most die within a few months.

Other than that, your Panther Grouper is already established in the tank...he'll most likely see it as lunch.

[zemuron114]

i've shippd 4 cleaners. All have eaten FROZEN mysis. I dont know why. lol.. if you put them in a large group of fish, they will most likely join in on the feeding.

The panther MAY try to snack on it. The waikiki aquarium has 2 in a 20000 tank with sharkes, VERY LARGE GROUPERS, tangs etc.

IF the tank is big enough with numerous big fish it would work.

[buldog]

I have kept a cleaner wrasse for 4 years. He is doing great. Cleans fish and eats regular food.

Rick

[edwar050]

I would avoid buying it as it is one of the fish that should not really be traded in the hobby until we know more about how it affects the wild. Many LFS have em bc of the high ammount of fish in transit.

[zemuron114]

i should have added that i only shipped them to a fish store my friend works at. He has big triggers/tangs/angels that he uses the cleaners to go at it for a while

What they do in the wild is obvious. However, we do not know how many there are and how often they reproduce, so collection should be limited... and many divers here in Hawaii dont collect them.

[Bluetangclan]

Cleaner wrasse as a whole do very poorly in captivity. Unless you have a large tank with large numbers of fish to feed off of, the odds of its survival are slim.
People, use some common sense, just because you get lucky with a hard to keep fish is no reason to encourage others to do so. I often see posts on mandarins for example and I know they are a difficult fish to keep long term, I had one, which ate frozen mysis and cyclopseze, but I also tested each one my LFS got in for close to 6 months to see if it would eat prepared food before I bought it. Even though I was successful, I do not endorse the idea on anyone else, nor do I ever pipe up on the "should I get a mandarin?" threads about how successful I was because I know I was a great exception to the rule. For me to go and say I successfully had a mandarin would be very irresponsible of me as an aquarist. Now posting how I got one is a different story, same with if someone who got lucky with a cleaner wrasse by using some oddball method of getting it to eat or waiting and checking like I did, and they say how they used said method. That progresses our knowledge of the hobby and should be encourages. Just saying I have "so and so fish and it does great", which differs from every respectable source of info(vendors and most fish books at Barnes and Nobles are not respectable sources and in the case of vendors, deliberately decieve), is not helpful and is detrimental to spreading good information which helps people. You didnt do anything special and your fish eats fine, great, keep it to yourself and enjoy how lucky you are because the other 99.9% of the fish are going to die.

[LRS078]

Cleaner wrasse fall into that category of Blue Ribbon Eels, Mandarin Goby's, Orange Spot Filefish, etc that while they can be kept, their survival odds are not great.

Cleaner Wrasses have a tough time surviving in ideal circumstances, an aggressive tank where they are on the menu of most of their tankmates makes it less so.

Bottom line: not impossible, but not recommended.

[stars&stripes]

thanks everyone for the tips. lloks like it might be a bad idea. i'll let you know what I decide to do and how it turns out.

[raw88gt]

i have my second cleaner wrasse both ate frozen mysis/brine first one was ate by my snowflake eel! my new one is in my 40 he seems to be doing great none of the fish bother him all tho they are not aggressive

[RGBMatt]

Cleaner wrasses can do fine in captivity, as long as they're in good health to begin with. They'll eat ordinary fish food, and even in a huge reef aquarium it's doubtful that other fish will have enough parasites to sustain their appetite. I think they're very vulnerable to starvation at the wholesaler, though, which is why they have a bad reputation.

I don't get the whole "removing them from the reef" complaint. Cleaner shrimps fill the same function in the wild, but nobody minds them being collected.