Wrasse Hiding

[jgabbsxx]

I purchased a Yellow Tail Wrasse on July 10th and have not seen it since. When is it an ok time to go digging through the sand to see if it died? Fish was healthy upon arrival but darted straight to the sand when added.

 

[vittpsu21]

Way too soon still imo, fish take much longer than you think to settle into a tank. My leapord wrasse went to bed every day 3pm for months. Then randomly one day decided it was time to start staying out until 9/10pm every day. I also was worried about him getting food (he was going to bed before I fed daily) so all he had were pods and the auto feeder but I’ll be danged if he’s not fat as **** now

If I were you I would do the hardest thing possible in reefing, be patient

 

[troublemaker]

I have a Yellow Coris Wrasse that disappeared for 6 months when I first got him. If he was getting up, we never saw him during the day, we actually thought he had died until one day it was just swimming around.

 

[Bucrob]

I purchased a Yellow Tail Wrasse on July 10th and have not seen it since. When is it an ok time to go digging through the sand to see if it died? Fish was healthy upon arrival but darted straight to the sand when added.

Wrasses are very peculiar, one of the many things that draws me to them is their fascinating behaviors. Many wrasses will act completely different from what people expect like with Halichoeres wrasses and Macropharyngodon wrasses I was consistently told that they would go into the sand for weeks on end upon entry into my tank however, I never experienced that. My leopard wrasse went in and the next day she was wide awake swimming around with everyone, granted, she did go to bed a bit earlier so she would miss the second feeding of the day. My halichoeres wrasses I have never had this issue with either nor my anampses wrasses.

From my experience, it seems heavily reliant on the quality of the fish, how long they have been settled in at the fish store etc... For example i've noticed when adding wrasses that have come directly from the wholesaler, essentially never having left the bag they were shipped in, that they are more prone to staying in the sand longer.


To sum it up, it is completely natural behavior for them, many people won't see them for the first week or so but some have even gone on for months like troublemaker has implied. They are very perplexing genre of fish in general but especially the sand buriers.