fish avoiding cleaner wrasse

[fishfreek]

I bought a cleaner wrasse five days ago from lfs. All the fish in my tank SEEM to be avoiding him. They seem to out of their way to not be near him. I have a coral beauty,pair of false percs,blue cheek goby and a cleaner shrimp. Do the fish need more time to adjust to the wrasse or do you think it is truly bothering the other fish and possably stressing them out? Is it adviseable to take the wrasse out of the tank?
Thanks,

 

[pufferlover]

Give it a little more time. You may be lucky in that the fish need no help from it at this time. I have never seen a fish other then a Dogface Puff that was harmed or scared of a cleaner wrasse. If it is not trying to clean them then either they are clean or the wrasse is not settled in. Let us know how it does in a little more time. It can take a couple of weeks for fish to get used to a new arrival.

 

[set-man]

Originally posted by fishfreek:
<STRONG>I bought a cleaner wrasse five days ago from lfs. All the fish in my tank SEEM to be avoiding him. They seem to out of their way to not be near him. I have a coral beauty,pair of false percs,blue cheek goby and a cleaner shrimp. Do the fish need more time to adjust to the wrasse or do you think it is truly bothering the other fish and possably stressing them out? Is it adviseable to take the wrasse out of the tank?
Thanks,</STRONG>

 

[set-man]

Fishfreek,
Cleaner wrasses are tough fish to keep for a long time unless you have a large tank with many large fish or are lucky enough to have one which eats aquarium food. I have had many in the past and will never buy another. The only fish it will clean would be the angel. Sometimes they can get aggressive in their cleaning and pick off scales. I have seen them do this once they rid the fish of parasites. This causes the other fish to avoid them. Hopefully you have better luck than I had. I do not think they should be imported at all.

 

[aquaman2]

their is a false cleaner that looks the same as the regular clearner wrase but it rips the flesh of the fish. I doubt yours is a false clearner because that they rarely end up in a fish tank, but just to tell you that their is a chance.
[ September 22, 2001: Message edited by: AquaMan2 ]

 

[pufferlover]

The real cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) has its mouth at the extreme end of the snout. The false cleaner (Aspidontus taeniatus) has a underslung mouth and will bite instead of clean a fish. The two look exactly the same except for the mouth (nature is clever sometimes huh) fish go to get cleaned and the false cleaner takes a bite out of them.

 

[fishfreek]

jwtrojan, my wrasse is eating brine shrimp and prime reef when i feed it. I now have found pics of both a cleaner wrasse and a false cleaner. When lights go on this AM i will check its mouth as puffer said and make sure i have a true cleaner wrasse. If not, my lfs is cool and they will let me return it for a full refund or exchange. Its great to have such a flexable lfs. I hope it turns out being the real thing because i like the color and that hes so active in the tank. As stated above, i could always get a neon goby, they are pretty cool too and do a good job cleaning.