Cleaner wrasse

[landmeier]

I have had two cleaner wrasses now and both times it has died in the night. Each time it is dead my emerald crab has it. I saw the wrasse this morning webbed up in a barnacle still alive. I now see the damn crab is eating it. Did the crab kill it or was it dead first? Is it possible the wrasse couldn't have gotten out of its web before the crab got it?

 

[craigj]

I don't know about the crab...I wouldn't think it could catch it but who knows. I know though that I got a cleaner wrasse once and it died within a few days...I think they're really weak fish.

 

[saltwater4me]

Yes they are pretty weak, but I don't know why your cleaner wrasses die.

 

[pufferlover]

The web you saw was the mucous cocoon the wrasse spins to sleep in at night. As to why it died we would need to know how long you had them and what were they eating if anything. If they were fairly new and did not eat anything you put in then they did not adapt and that is why they died. I have had many cleaner wrasses and until I found a store that sells claeners from the Maldives (wherever that is) I had a hard time keeping them alive, but all that I bought from that store have lived and ate many different foods plus clean the fish. The Red Sea and Hawaiian cleaners tho do not live no matter how hard one you try to work with them.

 

[justlooking]

I bought something today my lfs said was cleaner goby. I dont know, its really really small. Like maybe half an inch. Thin and black and yellow stripes. It rests on the back of the glass or on the corals.