[scubadude]

what do you feed yours? Have you caught it eating up the natural microfauna? Load me up with your personal experience with these fish please

[leebca]

Assuming you are speaking about Paracheilinus carpenteri, then I can say I've only kept one so I'm unsure how much I can help you on this. Ninong has a lot of knowledge about wrasses and may best answer your request for information.

Mine was easy to keep, getting along quite well in the community. It only ate very small pieces of food, so that might be a general requirement. This was not a problem since my food came in all sizes. It is a very peaceful fish and I had to remove another fish to stop picking on it. Knowing this in hindsight, it would have been better to put this fish into a display as one of the first fishes and then make sure the community is a peaceful one.

[zhenya]

Rocky,

Do you have any other pictures of it? I can;t quite make out if it is a carpenter's flasher or not. They are so closely resemble few others in the genus I always manage to make a mistake.

My closely related to your wrasse(P.filamentosus) jumped out of the tank at night, so I hope you have protection agains that trick. Mine also ate very small food items, like cyclop-eeze and very finely chopped pieces of shrimp/krill and smallish mysis.

[scubadude]

Originally Posted by zhenya

Rocky,

Do you have any other pictures of it? I can;t quite make out if it is a carpenter's flasher or not.

Heres the best pictures I have of him




as you can see the coloration seems different....go figure?! lens angle? the fish himself?
Do you have any pics of yours Gene?

[scubadude]

hmmmm...now im confused after comparing the pics on google between the two Im pretty sure mine is a carpentar wrasse....but geez who knows it could even be a Paracheilinus mccoskeri

[zhenya]

Here's the best shot I could get of him, keep in mind I was really pretty lousy with the camera back then. This image is waaaay overprocessed...

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by scubadude

Heres the best pictures I have of him




as you can see the coloration seems different....go figure?! lens angle? the fish himself?
Do you have any pics of yours Gene?

Rocky, it is definately the fish itself. In the first image it is relaxed and in the second it is flashing.., the best colors are very prominent then.

[scubadude]

Originally Posted by zhenya

Rocky, it is definately the fish itself. In the first image it is relaxed and in the second it is flashing

LOL ok does that make it a flasher wrasse then? Leave it to me to get a fish that just cant keep its clothes on!

[scubadude]

actually it does look very similar to yours except the high/fin flasher thingie....lol is it cuz mine is a male?

[scubadude]

Geez Gene....your supposed to help me! not confuse me more

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by scubadude

actually it does look very similar to yours except the high/fin flasher thingie....lol is it cuz mine is a male?

Well, it is definately a male, females not nearly colorful as the males are. And yes, it is a flasher wrasse.
And you may be right that it is not a carpenter's flasher wrasse but McCosker's. Tail colors and a single high spine on the dorsal fin makes me think that it is McCoskers.

Originally Posted by scubadude

Geez Gene....your supposed to help me! not confuse me more

You kidding, right?

[scubadude]

hehe...yeah I was kidding

I have been watching him fairly close....he was very timid for the first couple of days and staying under a rock....now he is not in the least bit shy. Im wandering if I should go ahead and put some eggcrate over the top?

[zhenya]

I would go ahead and do it, Rocky. Better be safe then sorry, which I was...
By the time I went out and got the eggcrate it had already jumped out.

[Ninong]

That's a gorgeous flasher!

The diet of the flasher wrasses (Paracheilinus spp.) is the same as that of the fairy wrasses (Cirrhilabrus spp.). They are all zooplanktivores. In nature they feed all day long on tiny zooplankton. I fed my tank at least twice a day and usually three times a day. Four or five times a day would be even better but you can get by with two or three times a day with flashers and fairies.

I have found that they will eat just about anything: mysis shrimp, Cyclop-Eeze, tiny pellet foods for carnivores (the smallest size pellets), flake food for carnivores, frozen squid (thaw it out and chop it up some more to get the individual pieces tiny enough), brine shrimp, etc.

And, yes, they're jumpers just like fairy wrasses. Some people use very fine plastic bird netting over the tank.