Clam and cleaner wrasse

[Fishfinder]

Has anyone ever had a cleaner wrasse picking at clams?? In the last few days it seeems my cleaner wrasse has developed a habit of picking. I have 3 clams. My oldest 12 months, 3 months, 1 month. My cleaner wrasse has been with me 8-10 months. In the last couple days he has started picking all my clams. What should I do?

 

[obimace]

Re-home him

 

[spsick]

I have one that’s picking at every invertebrate. I think they don’t get enough to eat in our tanks so they branch out.

 

[minus9]

Agree, cleaner wrasses require certain sized tanks with a large enough fish population that they don't stress any fish too much. They're really not designed for home aquaria. If you need a cleaner type fish, then look at the captive bred Elacatinus gobies (neon, sharknose, yellow, etc). All of them are great fish and will set up cleaning stations.

 

[Largeangels]

I never had a problem when I had clams with cleaner wrasses. I would suspect that either it isn't fed enough or there is something on the clams its picking at.

I think cleaner wrasses may be miss understood. I'm saying this from having a few and observing them over the years. If I knew nothing except what I've observed over the years I would say that they eat small pieces of food floating by in the water column and sometimes pick at rocks and clean fish and for survival and extra food. None of mine ever get to the point of bugging other fish to be cleaned. The fish come up to them and the wrasse then takes a few laps around the fish. As soon as they see small particles floating by in the water they attack it. I think they should be fed often like anthias. Mine eat flakes, pellets, mysis, etc. and always have a full belly. They seem to go especially nuts for Golden Pearls pellets in the 500-800 micron range.

Again, just from my observations after years of having cleaner wrasses and nothing else. I also don't believe any cleaner fish does enough to rid any type of disease we see in the aquarium.