Wrasse eating Coral

Ruthem22 · Jan 29, 2022

I recently got some new corals. Most of them are fine and doing really well. One of my Favia, however, got its mouth ripped of twice. The first head has managed to heal and I’m pretty sure the second one will too. It seems to be my red lined wrasse that is doing it. Has anyone ever had this issue before? I feed twice a day and it’s belly is always full. I knew they were “reef safe with caution”, but I thought that was for small inverts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

i cant think · Jan 30, 2022

Ruthem22 said:
I recently got some new corals. Most of them are fine and doing really well. One of my Favia, however, got its mouth ripped of twice. The first head has managed to heal and I’m pretty sure the second one will too. It seems to be my red lined wrasse that is doing it. Has anyone ever had this issue before? I feed twice a day and it’s belly is always full. I knew they were “reef safe with caution”, but I thought that was for small inverts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To me that’s either not a Halichoeres or a larger species of Halichoeres, any photos of the wrasse?

Ruthem22 · Jan 30, 2022

i cant think said:
To me that’s either not a Halichoeres or a larger species of Halichoeres, any photos of the wrasse?

I looked up the wrasse I have and it is a Halichoeres. Are they known to do this?

i cant think · Jan 30, 2022

Ruthem22 said:
I looked up the wrasse I have and it is a Halichoeres. Are they known to do this?

No, got any photos of the wrasse? No Halichoeres (EVEN the most aggressive of them, such as Jade wrasses) aren’t known to do this. Other genera such as Coris, Stethojulis, Thalassoma ect… are known to do this (Hense why I wanted to see a photo, invade it isn’t a Halichoeres).

They are known to eat animals that annoy the coral though, such as red flatties so it could be eating that and not eating the coral.