Melanurus Wrasse - new purchase/introduction

stevo01 · Jun 12, 2016

Hey everyone, I just wanted to put my personal experience on record. So far it's all been good.

I had a cute juvenile McKoskers wrasse in my tank with a Diamond goby and Firefish. I want a peaceful sexy reef safe wrasse, so I thought that was a good choice at my LFS. Everythings great and it's the perfect fish, but I realized I overlooked one thing. Its lack of drive for pest removal. I don't believe I have an infestation problem, but there is a good chance I have some things that should be removed. Rather than FE'ing my tank I decided to do more research as I'm new in reefing. All signs pointed to the Coris or Melanurus wrasse. Luckily, my McKoskers went to a friends beautiful 40GB with a 30G sump, and has the whole place to himself (NHREEFGUY).

I got my new Melanurus wrasse in the tank Friday evening (7pm). He immediately went behind the rocks and buried himself in the sand. It was about 7:30am today (Sunday) 36 hours before emerging good and hungry. 6am my lights come on with just blues, that ramp up to 100% fairly quickly. At 8am the whites come on at 10%. The normal wake up sequence is usually the goby comes out 7am, and immediately begins digging out his den. Then the goby digs out the firefish den. Firefish comes out anywhere from 7-9.

The goby and firefish woke up on schedule today. Within a half hour I saw a sand cloud and the first sight of the wrasse. He went right to picking at rocks and exploring for food. The goby was not intimidated and there was no aggression towards him. The mellie is showing curiosity towards the firefish but no aggression. Either way the firefish isn't having any of it. Living up to the dart fish name, he's been darting in and out of his den all morning. Not allowing the mellie to get more than a few inches before darting. So this is ok. I remember this is how the firefish acted when the baby McKoskers was introduced, as well and the Diamond. As long as the firefish gets to eat I don't foresee any problems. I fed them some frozen mysis and everyone ate. Since breakfast the wrasse has only been interested in studying his acrylic barrier. I'm hoping he tires of this soon, turns around at the rocks, and focuses on his intended purpose.

Note - I have a large skunk shrimp, snails, hermits, feather dusters, ect. He may eat a lot of them or may not. I'll update with that information, as well as his pest control and reef behaviors.

So that's it for right now

4FordFamily · Jun 12, 2016

stevo01 said:
Hey everyone, I just wanted to put my personal experience on record. So far it's all been good.

I had a cute juvenile McKoskers wrasse in my tank with a Diamond goby and Firefish. I want a peaceful sexy reef safe wrasse, so I thought that was a good choice at my LFS. Everythings great and it's the perfect fish, but I realized I overlooked one thing. Its lack of drive for pest removal. I don't believe I have an infestation problem, but there is a good chance I have some things that should be removed. Rather than FE'ing my tank I decided to do more research as I'm new in reefing. All signs pointed to the Coris or Melanurus wrasse. Luckily, my McKoskers went to a friends beautiful 40GB with a 30G sump, and has the whole place to himself (NHREEFGUY).

I got my new Melanurus wrasse in the tank Friday evening (7pm). He immediately went behind the rocks and buried himself in the sand. It was about 7:30am today (Sunday) 36 hours before emerging good and hungry. 6am my lights come on with just blues, that ramp up to 100% fairly quickly. At 8am the whites come on at 10%. The normal wake up sequence is usually the goby comes out 7am, and immediately begins digging out his den. Then the goby digs out the firefish den. Firefish comes out anywhere from 7-9.

The goby and firefish woke up on schedule today. Within a half hour I saw a sand cloud and the first sight of the wrasse. He went right to picking at rocks and exploring for food. The goby was not intimidated and there was no aggression towards him. The mellie is showing curiosity towards the firefish but no aggression. Either way the firefish isn't having any of it. Living up to the dart fish name, he's been darting in and out of his den all morning. Not allowing the mellie to get more than a few inches before darting. So this is ok. I remember this is how the firefish acted when the baby McKoskers was introduced, as well and the Diamond. As long as the firefish gets to eat I don't foresee any problems. I fed them some frozen mysis and everyone ate. Since breakfast the wrasse has only been interested in studying his acrylic barrier. I'm hoping he tires of this soon, turns around at the rocks, and focuses on his intended purpose.

Note - I have a large skunk shrimp, snails, hermits, feather dusters, ect. He may eat a lot of them or may not. I'll update with that information, as well as his pest control and reef behaviors.

So that's it for right now

Beautiful tank, melanarus are one of my favorites. Your skunk shrimp is going to be left alone most likely also your feather dusters. He may slowly take out snails and hermits that are smaller just replace them annually. It's completely worth it to have wrasses!

stevo01 · Jun 12, 2016

4FordFamily said:
Beautiful tank, melanarus are one of my favorites. Your skunk shrimp is going to be left alone most likely also your feather dusters. He may slowly take out snails and hermits that are smaller just replace them annually. It's completely worth it to have wrasses!

Thank you very much. Yup, I wouldn't have believed it from what I've read online, but the mellie and skunk and chillin just inches apart. I've seen him pick at a couple Nass snails, but didn't actively try to kill them. The white lights are up around 30% now. They are all out and reefin it up. He has been creeping in and out of a shelf that goes to the back of the tank. Exhibiting some natural behaviors, of hiding in a safe place and then coming out into the open for a minute then back into his shelf. In and out on repeat.