cleaner wrasses.....yes or no

[AQman]

I have had two cleaners, both died within a month. I've been keeping marine fish and inverts for 15 years, so it's not like I'm lacking in experience. I have moorish idols, they eat like pigs...so what, I'm not about to go around telling everyone that they are easy to keep, they're not...I just happend to GET LUCKY. As far as people not knowing whether or not it is L. dimidiatus or not, I have never seen anyother species of cleaner wrasse offered in a retail store and I live in the Bay Area. IME, if you buy a cleaner wrasse at a LFS, it will most likely be L. dimidiatus.

Organic Reefer, have youever seen cleaner wrasses providing services in the wild? I have, they stay in one and pick off any fish that wants it's sevices. I have never seen them pick off any coral or rock or anything else. As far as collecting ethics go, live rock is NOT a keystone species, cleaner wrasses might be, and they most likely are. That is the major issue. Haveyou ever been to a wholsaler? I have, I'm in the buisiness, and they have MANY dead fish in their tanks, including L. dimidiatus. It is the shipping, very stressful on ALL fish.

Everything in the marine hobby is "still open to debate" We are constantly utlizing new technology and or ways to keep our animals. Before not one coral could be kept, now they can. Before, no one would ever think of breeding marines, now they do and so do I. Maybe inthe future we will learn how to keep cleaners better, but now, we don't know how, same for moorsh idols, maybe it's just the shipping, maybe most don't feed them right, maybe I GOT LUCKY. I would like to get in contact with some wholesalers and see if they can share your "success," I doubt they can.

With any fish there will be success and faliure stories, and we all must take them all into account. However, L. dimidiatus is considered a very sketchy one to keep, I've heard far more failure than success. Also, I don't trust The Marine Aquarium Survival Manual, I have, it sucks. There are a lot of crappy books out there, I even had one that said a certain species of clownfish wasn't reef safe. Be careful what you read and where you get your info from.

Stephen

[bobfenner]

Originally posted by organicreefer
didnt fenner say the species was betwixt obligate and facultative?or do i need my vision checked:

It is my opinion that amongst the labrids of the genus Labroides that L. dimidiatus is the least absolutely obligate cleaner species. Of course have seen these in captivity (and the wild) consuming other material than parasites, necrotic tissue. Do want to be clear here re anecdotal accounts and recorded accounts... Have traveled widely, continuously over the last thirty some years in the marine livestock trade, developing collecting stations... folks do keep records (for pay, CITES, their suppliers...) of what is collected, incidental death... L. phthirophagus (out of Hawai'i natch), and L. rubrolabiatus (from some locales) have enjoyed maybe twenty percent longevity in the first month after capture... L. dimidiatus is in the single digits. Single, less than ten percent for sure are alive within thirty days of collection. Bob Fenner

[Powder Blue]

ravenmore and myself have been discussing cleaner wrasses in the thread"my fish died from ich".i would like input from more poeple on this subject.

I have a cleaner that eats prepared food like no tomorrow and is a welcome addition to the tank. He cleanes my Powder Blue Tang, Angels and Clowns regularly. White Spot is a huge problem with both commercial and hobby aquarists. I reccomend prevention is better than cure once you have the problem in the tank. I use sea water for changes and it is infested with the parasite. The best solution to rid the little bug once and for all is to not get it in your tank in the first place. Quaranteen your new arrivals for 3-4 days in copper in a seperate "hospital" tank with the temperature at 33'c and the bugs, if any, die. For sea water changes, let the water stand for 5 days before doing the change. I put my water in a holding tank and filter it aswell with NO fish in the tank and have great sucsess.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments or questions.

Regards
Sam
dynamic.cv@wol.co.za

[ravenmore]

I have a cleaner that eats prepared food like no tomorrow and is a welcome addition to the tank. He cleanes my Powder Blue Tang, Angels and Clowns regularly. White Spot is a huge problem with both commercial and hobby aquarists. I reccomend prevention is better than cure once you have the problem in the tank. I use sea water for changes and it is infested with the parasite. The best solution to rid the little bug once and for all is to not get it in your tank in the first place. Quaranteen your new arrivals for 3-4 days in copper in a seperate "hospital" tank with the temperature at 33'c and the bugs, if any, die. For sea water changes, let the water stand for 5 days before doing the change. I put my water in a holding tank and filter it aswell with NO fish in the tank and have great sucsess.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments or questions.

Regards
Sam
dynamic.cv@wol.co.za

wow - this is the week for reviving old threads!

Powder Blue - unfortunately your experience with your cleaner wrasse is the exception and not the rule. What you don't see is all the fish that are collected that die either before they make it into the store or in the store. I'd say less than one in 10 that are collected actually survive all the way to the hobbiest's tanks - and many of those perish soon after being introduced.

[miareefer]

Hi Folk
I know a guy in my local area who collects a fair few of these cleaner wrasse all the time he doesnt have a high mortality rate at all after capture he only keeps them for a week tops but doesnt lose enough to justify a high mortality rate on route to LFS. I have no idea on the specific type of cleaner but ill throw a pic up of one that has come from the same area from a different local collector. The reason ime chipping into this thread is the imformation ime privy to is genuine and is not biased at all if he lost a lot he would be the first to say. PS ive gone a long way into educating him about responsible collecting now hes stopping taking flowerpots and tending to take meatier more desirable LPS corals instead.
Mia

[Ninong]

miareefer,

The fish you have pictured is Labroides dimidiatus.

The extremely high mortality rate for cleaner wrasses, genus Labroides, is due to the fact that their nutritional needs are very rarely met in the average home aquarium. Those that do not die during collection and handling will usually perish within a few weeks of introduction into the home aquarium. However, the chances of success increase dramatically if the aquarium is very large (~500 gallons or larger) and heavily stocked with fish.

Labroides spp. wrasses feed on crustacean ectoparasites of other fishes, diseased or damaged tissue, and mucus from the bodies of other fishes. How much of each of these different foods makes up which proportion of their diet is the subject of ongoing study. It was originally thought that the Hawaiian Labroides fed principally on crustacean ectoparasites but newer studies indicate that considerable mucus is ingested, which is why they show a preference for cleaning fishes with much mucus. Their lower lip serves as a scoop to facilitate the removal of mucus.

IMO it is unethical to collect obligate cleaners for the aquarium trade. This is why the state of Hawaii has outlawed the collection of Hawaiian cleaner wrasses. Actually I think it is unethical for two reasons and the state of Hawaii has probably only considered the second of my two reasons:

• They have a very poor survival rate in captivity due to inadequate nutrition. Just because a fish may eat substitute foods in captivity doesn't necessarily mean it is getting adequate nutrition. This is a common misconception in the hobby that results in the early demise of many species of reef fishes that should not be collected in the first place.

• They perform a very important function in their natural environment. Studies have shown that removal of cleaner wrasses from a controlled area results in the overall decline in the condition and health of the remaining fish that depend on their services. This is similar to studies that show that removal of anemonefish from areas inhabited by Entacmaea quadricolor will result in the elimination of the E. quadricolor within 48 hours due to butterflyfish predation. Or other studies showing that over-harvesting of host sea anemones results in a decline in the local population of anemonefish because the juveniles have no suitable home for protective shelter.

Some species of animals cannot be removed at all without negatively impacting the ecosystem and others can be removed in limited quantities without the same impact. If you remove the surgeonfishes from a controlled area of the reef, it will be overgrown with algae in no time at all and the corals will die. If you remove the one known predator on the Crown of Thorns Starfish by over-harvesting, the Crown of Thorns' numbers will explode. They will explode even more if you throw in a lot of agricultural nitrates in terrestrial runoff to increase the availability of needed nutrition to the Crown of Thorns larvae. And people in Australia wonder why there are more problems recently with reefs being devasted by the Crown of Thorns. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Look what we have done to screw up the ecosystems all over the world. Australia is a good example, Hawaii is an even better example. Better in this case means worse. I won't even begin to mention all of the other isolated island ecosystems that we have screwed up with the introduction of alien species. Wait a minute, we were talking about removal. Sorry, I got off on a side track there. OK, here's a good one. Look at what happened when we removed Canis lupis from Yellowstone Park. You cannot remove a key species from an ecosystem without all sorts of unexpected negative consequences. In the case of a key predator, the result is an explosion in the prey population. Which, if the prey is herbivorous, results in devastation of the natural flora. It happens all over the world every time we decide to remove the wrong "bad" guy. Or even when we decide to remove the wrong "good" guys, like in Africa where key species are removed because they are valuable on the black market.

Oh, well... The point is that we should consider the consequences of our actions and act responsibly. I'm not saying we should all join PETA, but we could start by not collecting species that perform an important function necessary for the health of the ecosystem or species known to have extremely poor survival in captivity.

[miareefer]

Ime with you on this one Ninong My points on the cleaners where from the collecters point of view, After reading this thread and viewing the fish he had in stock at the time i saw a few cleaners there and asked him about the mortality rate and he said it was no different to any other fish he catches.Points not mentioned where that he houses these fish in huge systems and with large amounts of fish to feed from so when the go out to the local LFS across Australia they are in great condition and very few die at the LFS.
Reason being that they havent been quarantined for 4 weeks like normal fish that come into the country and they are a reasonable seller so they dont last long at the LFS so as we all know When a fish starves to death from poor nutrition it normally a very slow process . So fish goes out the door lasts a month and at that point the LFS is not responsible for the loss and the aquarist suffers the brunt and these numbers are largely unknown.
As far as reefs under threat its been well documented the amounts of untold destruction happening across the world and for part of this we all must take some blame for we as aquarists have fuelled this global greed somewhere along the line .Whether buying live rock fish or coral or live sand or inverts i seriously doubt theres a marine aquarist in the world that hasnt purchased a product that hasnt been collected from the wild .Infact i can see this going full circle in the future with global warming that some of the major reefs in the world will be under serious threat and some of the only living specimens of some delicate SPS will be in enclosed Aquaria. Lets just pray it doesnt happen but with the current trends that are happening its really inevitable. On closing with my doomsday theory nature has a way and can always adapt to varying conditions and enviroments but not really at such a fast rate say over a couple of hundred years it takes thousands of years for change to take place.
I hope i havent offended anyone as its not my intention
Mia

[rayjay]

Does anyone know what species comes from Sri Lanka?
All of mine (seven, one for each tank) come from Sri Lanka according to the LFS.
I have a poor picture of one on my for sale page, as I buy them, make sure they are eating many foods, and then resell them to others concerned about buying ones that don't eat.
The biggest problem I had was "jumpers" but I solved that with egg crate on tanks without full hoods. Fortunately, all but one jumper survived as I found them in time.
As I haven't sold one now in over a year, (I guess I saturated my market area) I don't have any that have been in my possession for less than a year. The older ones, in tanks where they are very hard to remove, have been with me for at least 5 years now. My oldest one was about 6 yrs old when I sold it and it was about 5 1/2 inches long at the time.
The only ones I've purchased that wouldn't eat at first were all very small ones, and I found that small ground beef heart started ALL of them eating.
Six of the ones I have now eat anything I put in the tank, and the other one eats everything but the spirulina.
As for ethics, I'll stay away from that argument in that how does one justify taking any fish or creature from the ocean.
I can so I do, but that doesn't make it right.

[Ninong]

rayjay,

The cleaner wrasse you have pictured in the second photo of your tank "as it is now" is a Labroides dimidiatus.

How is your Acanthurus japonicus doing? Some people report these guys are a problem with soft corals, especially Sarcophyton spp. and Xenia spp.

[rayjay]

Thanks, Ninong. Now the only problem is trying to remember what type they are. (all my cleaners are the same kind)
I've never had any problem with my powder brown or any of my many tangs.
With the powder brown, I have softies including different leathers and xenia, as well as lps corals and a clam.

[Powder Blue]

Hi Folk
I know a guy in my local area who collects a fair few of these cleaner wrasse all the time he doesnt have a high mortality rate at all after capture he only keeps them for a week tops but doesnt lose enough to justify a high mortality rate on route to LFS. I have no idea on the specific type of cleaner but ill throw a pic up of one that has come from the same area from a different local collector. The reason ime chipping into this thread is the imformation ime privy to is genuine and is not biased at all if he lost a lot he would be the first to say. PS ive gone a long way into educating him about responsible collecting now hes stopping taking flowerpots and tending to take meatier more desirable LPS corals instead.
Mia

Dear Members,

Very interesting reading with all the posts. I havent been here for a couple of days. The specimen posted is identicle to my guy. As I said before I have had amazing results from my Cleaner. He is a very active cleaner as well as the best feeder of the prepared food I put in once/twice a day in my tank. Common Marine mix of chopped stuff I bought from the LFS. I wonder why I have had no problems? My cleaner is perhaps the one that all hobiests wish for. I must say I have had many strange things happen in my tank. I the early days I bought a second Cleaner totally ignorant that I could not keep two and when I introduced the second, they got on like a house on fire!!! They would perform a strange dance around each other and would sleep in the same hole togeather at night. The most rewarding and interesting site to see.

When I mentioned the behaviour to my LFS owner, he nearly fell off his chair. Said that it could only be that they were perhaps a perfectly matched pair and said I should video the behaviour as it was unknown of. I gave one away some weeks later to a freind which was probably dumb as I will never enjoy that experience again or would never try to keep two again.

On our local reef where I snorkle dive I see many big fat Cleaners. Sometimes as many as 5 or 6 swimming togeather in a rock pool. They seem to be left alone though(good thing) and the local divers go for the more exotics. Another strange thing that happened is the LFS said I can put a Maroon Clown in with my resident Ocillaris and there would be not problem as long as the OC was smaller. When introduced, my OC hunted the Maroon down and ripped him to pieces. I had to take him out quick and damage was done already. The Maroon Clown died the next day and the LFS had no explination. I was furious at there bad advice and the torment my Clown went through.

[Ninong]

Thanks, Ninong. Now the only problem is trying to remember what type they are. (all my cleaners are the same kind)

Labroides dimidiatus is the common cleaner wrasse, sometimes called the bluestreak cleaner wrasse. It is very widespread.

I've never had any problem with my powder brown or any of my many tangs.
With the powder brown, I have softies including different leathers and xenia, as well as lps corals and a clam.

Acanthurus japonicus has been one of my favorites ever since I saw a gorgeous specimen in Waikiki Aquarium's 5500-gal reef tank:

http://www.reefland.com/forum/attach...tachmentid=244

I would love to try one if I ever set up a larger tank but Dr. Dieter Brockmann reports that he had one that ate several different species of soft corals. I hate to use the common name for this fish because "powder brown" is also the common name for A. nigricans. Better common names for A. japonicus would be white faced surgeonfish or Japanese surgeonfish. The overall confusion with common names is one of my pet peeves, especially so when it comes to LFS deliberately using incorrect common names to make matters even more confusing.

[rayjay]

I sure wish I could use the proper names, but I'm one of those people that are incapable of retaining anything complicated. Heck, I couldn't even pass a french exam once out of four years of it.
Around here, most people use the common names, with the distinction of the browns being the powder brown and the gold rim.
There are a lot of powder browns around here, and I've never heard of a problem with them picking at anything, other than other fish.

[Darrick]

Ok, I've looked up the dimidiatus. Would this thread also apply to other wrasses such as the 6 line? Are there any other types of wrasses that are good cleaners besides the dimidiatus?

[Ninong]

Ok, I've looked up the dimidiatus. Would this thread also apply to other wrasses such as the 6 line? Are there any other types of wrasses that are good cleaners besides the dimidiatus?

All six species of the Labroides genus wrasses are cleaners. The 6-line wrasse is Pseudocheilinus hexataenia. Some of the other wrasses are falcultative cleaners as juveniles but only the Labroides wrasses are cleaners as juveniles and as adults, obligatory in their natural environment but sometimes more or less falcultative in captivity.

[Minh Nguyen]

We do not need cleaner wrasse to keep a tank disease free. I have never keep cleaner wrasse. My tank is disease free. Good reef keeping techniques are all we need to keep a tank healthy and essentially free of disease. I routinely added sick fish into my tank. They recovered, and do not cause my other fish to get sick or die.
Several points I wish to point out, all are my observation.

1. The vast majority of the tanks I see that are doing well do not have cleaner wrasse in them.
2. All reefkeepers I know who I consider advance do not keep cleaner wrasse.
3. Essentially all the reef tank that I saw that have cleaner wrasse in are not doing well.
4. The cleaner wrasse in captivity I saw are all emaciated, and not doing well. I challenge some one to post a picture of a fat cleaner wrasse that has been in captivity for more than one month.

Cleaner wrasses do not last long in captivity, that much for sure. While we can keep many small wrasses like 6-line wrasse for many years, this statistic is dismal for cleaner wrasses.

These wrasses are not beautiful, not needed, and have dismal record. Remove them may have large impact to the wild population. Why do it?

Minh

[rayjay]

OK guys, now I could quite easily get ticked off here on this topic.
It's all right to state your beliefs that the cleaner wrasses shouldn't be kept in a tank, but when statements are made that they don't live, or don't live long in a tank, that just isn't true.
Years ago I posted a piece on my web site relating to my experiences with cleaner wrasses, including a picture of one. That fish and others I had at the time are still in my tanks, minus a few that I sell to other hobbyists that are concerned about buying them from the LFS. They have all been replaced with others that are still with me and the only loss was a jumper that was my fault for not replacing the egg crate one night. Anyway I've already posted that in this thread.
Minh, I have a lot of respect for your knowledge and abilities but I do not understand why you are not open to the fact that others can have completely different experiences.
I guess I should be used to it because I certainly have received a lot of negative comments in my e-mails because of things like using only NO fluorescent lighting for all of my tanks, as well as keeping tangs that are supposed to be hard to keep, and, keeping these cleaner wrasses. He_l, I even have the audacity to raise brine shrimp to adult size and do it on a large scale and then been told that I can't do it.
Anyway, I just have to comment on your last posting.

1. The vast majority of the tanks I see that are doing well do not have cleaner wrasse in them. I can't say that I disagree with this statement although there are a lot of long term successful tanks around here.

2. All reefkeepers I know who I consider advance do not keep cleaner wrasse. I may not be "advanced" but I've been successful now for over ten years.

3. Essentially all the reef tank that I saw that have cleaner wrasse in are not doing well. That doesn't mean that somewhere else, most of the tanks with cleaner wrasses in aren't doing well. Around here there is nothing wrong with any of the tanks I've seen cleaner wrasses in. Also, I don't see why a tank should not be doing well just because it has a cleaner in it.

4. The cleaner wrasse in captivity I saw are all emaciated, and not doing well. I challenge some one to post a picture of a fat cleaner wrasse that has been in captivity for more than one month. I don't see how any picture should be able to be proof because someone could post a picture of a fat cleaner and tell you they had it for a long time. How do you know?
You could find someone from the London Ontario Canada region and they would be welcome to come and see for themselves what I have and how I keep them. I really don't know of any other way to convince someone who has his mind already set on a topic.

Cleaner wrasses do not last long in captivity, that much for sure. Based on my experiences, this is not a true statement, although it may be your experiences. It would be more correct to say that cleaner wrasses from some areas will not survive long in captivity, like the hawiian cleaner wrasses.
The only cleaner wrasses I keep are from Sri Lanka so I can say for a certainty that these wrasses have NO problems surviving in my tanks.
These wrasses are not beautiful, not needed, and have dismal record. Remove them may have large impact to the wild population. Why do it? Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Many fish treasured by other hobbyists I seen no attraction for at all. Conversley, the tangs and butterflys that I like have no appeal for many other hobbyists.
Some cleaner wrasses have/may have dismal records but the Sri Lanka ones I keep do not.
Any fish I have in my tank is not needed, and can have an impact on the wild population.
I do it because I developed a passion for the beauty of it all when I went diving on a reef. I wish that I could keep much more of it's beauty in my tanks but at this point probably the majority of what exists on the reefs would not survive using todays technologies for the average hobbyists tanks.

[Ninong]

An interesting opinion on this topic is offered by Robert Fenner: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/labroide.htm

[Minh Nguyen]

rayjay,
My last post are my observations on cleaner wrasses. I only comment on everything I seen first hand, not on heresay from somebody else.
I have never seen, with my own eyes, an fat cleaner wrasse in somebody's tank. I never seen a cleander wrasse that live in somebody's tank for 1+ year. Are there such creature out there? Maybe but the chance of this is slim IMO base on my previous observations.
Minh

[rayjay]

Unfortunately the Robert Fenner piece just shows that he too is unaware that there are cleaner wrasses that survive quite well in hobbyists tanks. No one, even a "name" person can know it all, and this is just an example of that.
It's unfortunate that in the hobby, so many statements are made as being a point blank fact instead of stating the exceptions to them, this being one of them.
Minh
Several points I wish to point out, all are my observation.
I saw your statement, however, after you made your 4 points, you made the statement:
Cleaner wrasses do not last long in captivity, that much for sure.
This was stated as a fact, not an opinion, and is incorrect.
I have no problem with people stating their opinions, as I previously mentioned, but I DO have a problem with so many people on so many topics, stating facts that can't be proven, and this topic is just one of them.
I responded to your points of observation in order to show you that others can experience differing results than what you do.
Something that may be well to keep in mind is that todays "fact" may not be "fact" tommorrow.
When I first started I don't think anyone could captive breed salt water fish, and now severl hobbyists in my area are breeding and raising clownfish to sell to the LFS's in the area.