question about melanarus wrasse

Beam

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i bought a beautiful melanarus wrasse today, (first wrasse after almost 20 years in reef keeping.... yes know i know)
after acclimatization, it immediately buried itself in the sand. of course i was expecting this reaction, but i wonder, according to you, how long could it stay hidden like that?
 

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The same occurred to me upon introduction, both to QT and then later to my display tank. He might have stayed buried for 2-3 days at first. Once acclimated to the environment he's in bed (sand) by 7 PM and comes out again in the morning as soon as the lights come on. Fun fact: In the two years I've had him, I've never managed to witness him either burying himself or exiting the sand. o_O
 
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good to know, I wouldn't panic if I'm a few days without seeing him. and since I'm leaving for the weekend tomorrow, the house will be quiet, that should help him a bit.

and I know what you mean when you say you don't see him go to bed,
I was watching him a little bit from a distance, he was crawling around in a corner of the aquarium, and by the time I took my eyes off him for 2 minutes, he was gone.
but I know where he's hidden, because I can see some of his skin on the glass of the tank,
 

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I have had them hide for over a week before. And shame on you for just now getting one!! You should also get a checkerboard wrasse, they will be great friends. These are two of my favorite fish.
 
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Yes I know I've been slow on the wrasses.
I've been looking at them for a long time, and I think they're beautiful, but I've always been worried about their reputation for being aggressive, especially towards invertebrates, which I like too.
Before, I only had a small 50 gallons, which I didn't want to overload, but now that I have a bigger aquarium, I decided to go for it, and this one really seduced me by its beauty, but also for its utilitarian side, and I think it has a better reputation against invertebrates.
 

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Mine stayed hidden for almost 2 weeks, then I added some more fish and he came out like oh hey what’s up guys?!
he goes to bed at a strict time every night and is up early to play. I had never seen him bury himself either until I had to empty the tank cuz of velvet. In qt I had a Rubbermaid container of sand for him to sleep in, like a cute little bed lol.
 

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I've had the chance to witness ours go to bed both in the QT and the DT. He picks a new bed every night. He puts me into panic attacks because he takes unscheduled vacations and will stay buried for days at a time. The longest time so far is about a week after a major restructure of rock work. We thought he might've accidentally caught him under the rocks despite moving the sand slightly before placing each rock but he reappeared like nothing had happened. He carefully investigates every new coral or rock that gets added to the tank and eats nori from my hand along side our sailfin tang.
 
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Wow, you're lucky,
mine finally showed up after 4-5 days, he is active, he eats well and is in perfect health.
I was lucky enough to see him go to bed one night, it's fast, it took 1 second and he was gone :)
 
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i like this picture of my wrasse, :)
 

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Potatohead

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They are a great fish. Mine also stayed hidden for 4-5 days at first, he is still somewhat skittish when I put my hands in the tank. Otherwise he's out and about hunting pods all day.
 
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I've had him for a few months now and he's a model citizen, I had a few flatworms, but I haven't seen any for a few weeks now, thanks to him. otherwise, he's doing his own thing, he leaves the shrimp and snails alone.
 

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I've had the chance to witness ours go to bed both in the QT and the DT. He picks a new bed every night. He puts me into panic attacks because he takes unscheduled vacations and will stay buried for days at a time. The longest time so far is about a week after a major restructure of rock work. We thought he might've accidentally caught him under the rocks despite moving the sand slightly before placing each rock but he reappeared like nothing had happened. He carefully investigates every new coral or rock that gets added to the tank and eats nori from my hand along side our sailfin tang.
We have a new record. We added a female Melanurus, Ruby, and she vanished for 47 days. Our male, EJ, harrassed her the day she went in the tank and I saw her sand-dive and didn't see her again. We wrote her off as deceased. We had a tank emergency just over a week ago which required a 90% water change and we decided while we had everything out to re-do the aqua-scape while we waited for the water to mix. By the end of the day of the water change she had reappeared. At first we thought it was the 6-line but looked too big and didn't look right to be EJ. Once the tank cleared we could see it was Ruby. EJ and Ruby had a chasing bout for a few hours and now it's like they are best buddies and you never would've known she was gone for 47 days. He is about 1" longer than her.
 

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