cleaner wrasse

[denisec]

I just bought a cleaner wrasse and added him to my tank that just has a yellow tang in it. Right away he started pecking at him. The tang seems to hold still for him to do it. I assume this is normal.. please confirm..

 

[set-man]

This is completely normal. Hopefully your cleaner wrasse eats prepared foods because once the parasites run out (few days if lucky) s/he will starve. They are very difficult to keep unless seen eating at the LFS.

 

[dasnake03]

I would like to add a cleaner wrasse but I am affraid my tusk or bird wrasse will bite it in half like one of them did to a 2" Algae blenny. Whenever I see them at the lfs they seem to be pissing the other fish off,are they good to have? Are the cleaner gobies better? I read somewhere that the tank raised ones don't clean fish,like the wild specimans do.

 

[set-man]

Dasnake,
I'm not sure if I have ever heard of tank raised cleaner wrasses. If there is such a thing, they are probably much more hardier than wild caught specimens because they eat prepared foods. For some reason most fish most fish are very tolerant of cleaners. You have probably seen pictures of cleaners on groupers, etc without the other fish snapping them up. I'm not sure how this would be in a confined area (tank) where the fish are constantly in contact.
Overall they are very delicate fish unless they are eating and placed in an established tank. They also do well in reef tanks. If you do find a tank-raised specimen then let us all know!!! I stopped keeping them years ago. Anyways good luck

 

[dasnake03]

I was talking about tank raised cleaner gobies.