Need help! I want to get a wrasse but...

[Diazcm]

Hello, everyone I have a red sea reefer 450 she's about 1.5 yrs old and I'm beginning to get a little more aggressive towards SPS corals.

The issue I'm having is since I'm leaning towards SPS I would like to get a wrasse to help clean up parasites and such that may sneak into in my reef tank but about 6 months ago my wife came home with a Mandarin and added him to our reef tank so I had to go into emergency mode and stock the tank with pods and now the mandarin is her favorite fish so I really cant just take out the mandarin.

Am I able to keep a wrasse and mandarin happy in the same tank? I'm sure my pod supply will plummet as soon as I add a wrasse and I don't believe mandarins eat parasites and such.

any advice or suggestions in this matter would be greatly appreciated thank you!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

You may have to teach the mandarin to eat something else, use a specialized feeding tray for it, or supplement pods to the aquarium if you want to go forward with the wrasse. My melanurus wrasse is a great pest eater (if one gets through dipping) but he's also the primary reason I don't have many pods left in my system.

 

[evolved]

1) There's no wrasse which will eliminate pests from a system
2) Any wrasse which grazes from surfaces will out-compete your mandarin

Sorry.

 

[Diazcm]

1) There's no wrasse which will eliminate pests from a system
2) Any wrasse which grazes from surfaces will out-compete your mandarin

Sorry.

no worries. thanks

 

[Diazcm]

You may have to teach the mandarin to eat something else, use a specialized feeding tray for it, or supplement pods to the aquarium if you want to go forward with the wrasse. My melanurus wrasse is a great pest eater (if one gets through dipping) but he's also the primary reason I don't have many pods left in my system.

thanks

 

[maroun.c]

Worse case periodically add pods to the system.

 

[ngoodermuth]

If you really want a wrasse, maybe go with a fairy or flasher wrasse? IME they spend most of their time in the water column, not picking at rocks. And like Hunter mentioned, no wrasse is guaranteed to eat the pests you are hoping it will anyway. I would set-up a coral QT or at the very least a strict dipping regimen for that.

I have two fairy wrasses, two leopards, and a yellow halichoerus in a 120g with a mandarin. I'm home, so I feed my wrasses 3-4x a day; but the two leopards and yellow wrasse still hunt ALL day. My mandarin eats nutrimar ova, so I supplement with that and baby brine shrimp periodically.

 

[4FordFamily]

If you really want a wrasse, maybe go with a fairy or flasher wrasse? IME they spend most of their time in the water column, not picking at rocks. And like Hunter mentioned, no wrasse is guaranteed to eat the pests you are hoping it will anyway. I would set-up a coral QT or at the very least a strict dipping regimen for that.

I have two fairy wrasses, two leopards, and a yellow halichoerus in a 120g with a mandarin. I'm home, so I feed my wrasses 3-4x a day; but the two leopards and yellow wrasse still hunt ALL day. My mandarin eats nutrimar ova, so I supplement with that and baby brine shrimp periodically.

My thoughts exactly. I had mandarins in my wrasse tank. I did dose pods regularly. My sump was overloaded with them, too. They were quite prolific down there. The mandarins did eventually transition to other small foodstuffs but did feed on “dosed” pods. An expensive proposition I won’t be repeating, however.

 

[saltyhog]

I would love to have a mandarin but short of having a second tank I'm sure I never will. 3 Halichoeres wrasses and a Potter's leopard wrasse pretty much make that impossible. One day maybe I'll have an SPS/angel/pipefish/mandarin tank.

My recommendation would be rejoice in having a healthy mandarin and add a colorful fairy or flasher wrasse that won't be any threat to it!