Wrasse aggression towards Molly

Fink

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So I recently tore down my 13.5g fluval and moved all of the livestock to my 32g biocube and my 90g. I have a 6-line wrasse in both of those tanks. The two female creamsicle mollies went to the 90g and the black male went to the biocube.

I immediately notcied that the black molly was hiding, and when I found him again he looked pretty beat up. I had a molly miller blenny in there that fought with a black molly that I used to cycle that tank a while ago and I saw him chasing the molly a bit, so I thought maybe he was the culprit. I took out all of the rock/coral to catch the blenny, and surrendered him to one of my LFS because I was sure he was the culprit. When I got home from the four hour round trip (I don't live near any saltwater stores) the molly was MUCH worse, and I eventually saw my six-line chasing him.

I took the molly out and moved it to the 90, where it hid in my goby/shrimp burrow until feeding time. Today was LRS day and all of the fish love it, and even he came out to get some. When my little baby six-line in the 90 (who has been fine with the female mollys) saw him, he immediately attacked.

Does anyone know why this is happening? Why do wrasses hate this male moly in particular, but don't care about my females? Any ideas to try and lower the aggression? If I can get him to come out of hiding again I'll try a breeder box, but I don't know if that's going to anything but delay the inevitable.
 

ichthyogeek

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There was an amazing pun I could have used but I'm not sure if it violates TOS....

Anyways, some wrasses (six lines especially) are major [pun was supposed to go here] jerks. I noticed that it was black male mollies that are getting beaten up, but not creamsicle females? Have you tried creamsicle males? It could just be the color for some reason...

It's the opposite for me. The BOFFF black molly I've got terrorized my firefish so she had to be moved.
 
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There was an amazing pun I could have used but I'm not sure if it violates TOS....

Anyways, some wrasses (six lines especially) are major [pun was supposed to go here] jerks. I noticed that it was black male mollies that are getting beaten up, but not creamsicle females? Have you tried creamsicle males? It could just be the color for some reason...

It's the opposite for me. The BOFFF black molly I've got terrorized my firefish so she had to be moved.
I'm 90% sure that my rainbow RBTA at my firefish the first week the BTA was in the tank, so I never got to the interaction between the molly and the firefish. The black molly unfortunately did not make it.

After the black molly was out of the picture there was a little bit of aggression between the molly and the six-line, but the creamsickle doesn't just run, she turns and squares up, and this seems to get the wrasse to back down. This may be why I wasn't seeing any aggression when the black molly was still around... the black molly was just easier for the six-line to bully....

Are melanarus as aggressive as six-lines? I might just try to replace the six-line if he is this aggressive as a juvenile, I'm scared to think of what he'll do as an adult. I just like to have a pest-eating wrasse around.
 

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