Wrasse Harem?

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Anyone know if a harem of yellow corrís wrasses could work. Or of any type of wrasse really. I would like 3 or 4 that sort of “hunt” together. Also open to listening to any success stories of wrasse harems.
 

norfolkgarden

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The 1st week they look like a little family of otters.[emoji846]

They don't really stay together at all after the first week. [emoji53]

Beautiful color. They show up the best in our tank. Most outgoing fish that we have. They are beautiful and very active.

Right now we have 5 very tiny ones from 3/4 of an inch up to an inch and 3/4.

I have been told that they will eventually be just as worthless as any other 'harem' of wrasse.
That all wrasse will eventually turn male in a tank environment.
As soon as the 2nd wrasse of that species becomes male it's a war and will need to be removed immediately before 1 kills the other.

Largest of the 5 is a total jerk to all 4 the other 4 about 10% of the time.
There is a ridiculous amount of hiding places and blind spots so the others can get out of sight fairly quickly.
If the largest wrasse is in a mood it will cover the entire length of the tank chasing smaller wrasse in-and-out of the rocks.
 

eatbreakfast

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Harems rarely work longterm. H. chrysus is pretty peaceful and tolerates it's own kind fairly well, so if the tank is large enough, they may coexist, but as mentioned before, the hunting together and acting like a pack is very short lived.
 

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I like keeping fish in groups (note I'm avoiding the 'shoal' word:)) I have in the past kept Splendid Leopard (Macropharyngodon bipartitus bipartitus), Leopard (M. meleagris), White belly yellow wrasse (Halichoeres leucoxanthus). I currently have a trio of Timor wrasse (H. timorensis). All the species lived together and tolerated each other, in the case of the Splendid Leopard and Leopard wrasse I did end up with a harem (1M and 3-4F). My Timor wrasse breed weekly, I have a male and 2 females.

Except for the males showing to the females, once they have sorted a hierarchy (I got a bit of handbags in the first few weeks) the wrasse tend to ignore each other and wander all over the tank, so if you want them to shoal or group, it doesn't happen.
 
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Ok so if that doesn’t work. What wrasses live together peacefully. I’m looking for wrasses that will hunt the little worms and stuff in rocks
 
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Tank size?

You can more than likely mix smaller/peaceful Halichoeres like yellow, red-lined, etc.

It will be a 300 gallon. Predator tank. I would like a epaulette shark, emperor angel, blue face angel, porcupine puffer and dog face puffer, California sting ray, Naso tang and maybe a harlequin tusk.
 

eatbreakfast

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It will be a 300 gallon. Predator tank. I would like a epaulette shark, emperor angel, blue face angel, porcupine puffer and dog face puffer, California sting ray, Naso tang and maybe a harlequin tusk.
I would be very wary of the stingray eating sand burying wrasses at night.
 

nereefpat

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It will be a 300 gallon. Predator tank. I would like a epaulette shark, emperor angel, blue face angel, porcupine puffer and dog face puffer, California sting ray, Naso tang and maybe a harlequin tusk.

Well, that's not what i expected.

You can keep several aforementioned wrasses, as well as some bigger ones, although they probably won't swim together. Not sure about compatibility with the shark or stingray...not my department. Good luck.
 
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I would be very wary of the stingray eating sand burying wrasses at night.

Oh man lol. I didn’t even think of that. I’m a long way away from getting the whole thing set up. But just am too anxious. I’ve already written out what I need for it but the market and technology will probably even be better by the time I get the funds to pursue this. Thanks!
 

4FordFamily

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You're better off with larger halichoeres, thalassoma, or coris wrasse in a predator tank, as mentioned. Rays like to eat fish they can fit in their mouth, particularly "sitting ducks" in the sand (as @eatbreakfast as mentioned).

Wrasse won't school together in home aquaria, or at least this is not a reasonable expectation. A group of yellow coris (actually a halichoeres) would probably coexist fine, but they wouldn't do much "together" other than be present in the same aquarium. Other groups of halichoeres would probably not work, so if you're set on doing this, you selected a good fish for conspecifics.

In a predator tank though, I worry about their peaceful demeanor and relatively small size. I imagine they'd be an easy snack for a predator tank.
 

norfolkgarden

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I like keeping fish in groups (note I'm avoiding the 'shoal' word:)) I have in the past kept Splendid Leopard (Macropharyngodon bipartitus bipartitus), Leopard (M. meleagris), White belly yellow wrasse (Halichoeres leucoxanthus). I currently have a trio of Timor wrasse (H. timorensis). All the species lived together and tolerated each other, in the case of the Splendid Leopard and Leopard wrasse I did end up with a harem (1M and 3-4F). My Timor wrasse breed weekly, I have a male and 2 females.

Except for the males showing to the females, once they have sorted a hierarchy (I got a bit of handbags in the first few weeks) the wrasse tend to ignore each other and wander all over the tank, so if you want them to shoal or group, it doesn't happen.
Lol, but I love the 'shoal' word. [emoji846]

Been failing at that repeatedly. [emoji53]

LFS has the tiniest beautiful sapphire damsels. Would love to try 10 but I would need a brand new tank. The one I have is already overloaded.

You wrasses sound beautiful!

Do you have any short videos or pictures?
Thank you!
 

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