[szwedo]

i had just purchased a clener wrasse(labroides dimidiadus) 4 days ago. i have noticed it sleeps close to rocks laying down or on its side. today it didn't wake up so i woke it up and it went somwhere else and it went back to sleep. it slept all night and now it is still sleeping. here its already 2:00p.m. does anyone now why it does this?

p.s. i bought it because my powder brown tang had ich really bad and adding a cleaner shrimp didn't work. the day i added the wrasse its right side was all cleared up.

[kevinpo]

Some species of wrasses do this. I get Leopard wasses that bury for days when I first get them. It seems their internal clock is hard to reset from the time zone they came from.
Cleaner wrasses usually die in the home aquarium as they are very hard to get feeding and acclimated to captive life. There are exceptions but they are few.

Regards,
Kevin

[szwedo]

Thanks for the info Kevin but my wrasse ate cyclop-eeze like crazy. Now I can't see him at all.

[Spick]

Originally Posted by szwedo

Thanks for the info Kevin but my wrasse ate cyclop-eeze like crazy. Now I can't see him at all.

Sorry to inform you but I'm with Kevin, your Cleaner wrasse will not last in an aquarium, there is simply not enough food for him to survive, his splurge on cyclop-eeze, must be cause hes starving. They are a great fish to solve problems, but unfortunately will pass awayafter the problem has been resolved. Most LFS will not sell them due to this problem.

Good luck!

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by szwedo

Thanks for the info Kevin but my wrasse ate cyclop-eeze like crazy. Now I can't see him at all.

Maybe he has ich and he's hiding out?

[szwedo]

Yes Ninong i think i did see a little ich and I know it won't last long anyway i just bought it because my powder brown tang had really bad ich and now its all back because the wrasse didn't get it all and the cleaner shrimp never cleaned a fish in its life. I tried garlic but thats not working either.

[dave00gt]

its messed up when local fish stores dont tell you anything so they can just get 15 bucks, what kinda crap is that, i have had one and i honestly thought the ghost ribbon eel ate him, now i got another one and i acclimated him very well with a acclimating kit which in no more than a drip line to get him to my salinity level, and now he doesnt come out, which i thing he is going to hide untill he dies.

[BubbaWPB]

What can one say other than "caveat emptor" (let the buyer beware).

[Ninong]

Removing cleaner wrasses from the wild is not a good idea because removing them has a detrimental effect on their "clients."

[greenbean36191]

Gut analysis of them also shows that they don't even eat ich.

[Poseidon]

Bummer for you, and Bummer for the wrasse. It is a shame LFS will still order species that are known to have little chance of survival. Guess ethics and money just refuse to get along! (I know not all LFS are that way.)

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Bummer for you, and Bummer for the wrasse. It is a shame LFS will still order species that are known to have little chance of survival. Guess ethics and money just refuse to get along! (I know not all LFS are that way.)

Leaving aside the ethical question of whether they should be collected and addressing only the question of whether Labroides dimidiatus will survive in captivity, I think the chances that it will survive and even thrive are greatly increased if the aquarium is a large one (at least 180 gallons) that houses a large number of client fish. This is because even though the natural diet of L. dimidiatus on the Great Barrier Reef is primarily gnathiid isopods (they consume an average of 1200 gnathiids per day) supplemented with mucus and client tissue, in captivity they will get by just fine on fish mucus and necrotic tissue supplemented with occasional microcrustaceans. And in captivity, some of them may even eat some foods introduced by the aquarist.

Alexandra Grutter recently performed controlled tests that demonstrated that L. dimidiatus actually prefers fish mucus to ectoparasites. In it's natural habitat it has to consume ectoparasites, along with mucus and occasional nips of fish tissue, if it expects its clients to return. Consuming mucus alone wouldn't work because there would be no benefit to the client other than tactile stimulation. In general, clients visit cleaner stations for cleaning services based on their parasite load, not based on any need to be social.

I know of several experienced reefkeepers who keep L. dimidiatus in large tanks (300-gal+) with a high fish load without problems. It is a shame that they are collected in such large quantities because most of them will not survive more than a few weeks in captivity mainly because they won't do well in small tanks without a large population of client fish. What hobbyists sometimes refuse to accept is that many fish (e.g., cleaner wrasses and mandarin dragonets) just will not thrive long-term on commercial foods. They require their natural diets to thrive.

[jollopee]

Not to hijack this post but Im glad I read it. I am now removing the mandarin from my list of fish that I am wanting to add to my tank. I didnt know they were so hard to keep. A little difficult mabey, but I had no idea chances of survival were slim. Oh well, now to think of another to take its place on "the list"


Todd