Wrasses that Eat AEFW or Red Bugs
 

Heard that some wrassess CAN be effective at eating AEFW or Red Bugs. I say "CAN" because there are no hard rules when it comes to fish. Anybody had success using natural predators (wrasses or other fish) to control or eliminate these pests?

If you have a success story please share the specifics.

6 line or yellow but they will only eat a few if they find them. They won't control them if you have lots.

Thats for flat worms. I don't think they eat red bugs, but am not sure on that.

I had a pretty good outbreak of photosynthetic FW and my Halichoeres chrysus took care of them pretty good. I've heard they will clean up AEFW too so I gues they aren't too species specific about their FW prey. H. melanurus and H. iridis are supposed to be very good at this as well. Don't know about red bugs.

this is just me speculating now, but I also firmly believe that it is the smaller specimens who are most likely to eat such small prey; Many adult fish in general do something called resource partitioning. That is, the adults eat different prey than their juvenile forms so as not to compete for food with them and reduce their survival. It is a common behavioral strategy and I would not be surprised to see wrasses exhibiting this.

edit: also, you should not feed the tank much. If you stuff the fish full of easy to obtain prepared foods, there won't be any need for it to expend energy hunting for live food.

Red bugs
 

I don't know about natural predators for red bugs but Interceptor works great.
I have had them two separate times. "Bad frag trading practices" Both times only one dose was needed. Bad thing is it will also kill most of the other crabs and shrimp in your tank unless you remove them from the tank before you treat it.

There were a few guys on the ZEOvit forum who have used Six Lines to keep AEFW in check. Actually one of the guys hasn't had anymore at all since adding a few 6 lines. I think it was 6 of them. He didn't keep all the wrasses though.

He would blow the AEFW off the corals and the wrasse would follow him around eating them. It took a long time but eventually they went away.

Thanks. I do not have AEFW or red bugs but I am planning out my fishload for a new tank.
Any other experiences?

None. But, kudos for you for planning out your fish load.

The most interesting non-chemical AEFW treatment I've seen is using camel shrimp. Put a couple in a QT along with an infected colony. The shrimp will eat the AEFW first before the begin eating the polyps so you watch them carefully until all the AEFWs have been eaten before you quickly take the colony out.

I figure if you are choosing between 2 fish might as well add a the fish that could potentially control pests and help your reef rather than just contributing entertainment and "poop."

...is important too ;)

Your corals gotta eat!

I have heard that the Halichoeres Melanurus eats red bugs. I do not have any proof though. I have heard this from Jim at OA who had heard this from his fish suppliers.

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Spec...name=melanurus

Look very similair to a Christmas Wrasse but has a blue head. Believe I have a female.

Chris

I've heard the same as Chris. It sounds to me as if H. melanurus is the best among wrasses for pest control; it doesn't hurt that it is also a gorgeous fish and is fairly well suited for captivity. Unfortunately, you'll find that they are hard to find in Canada although American suppliers occasionally get them. That said I just found one at J&L last week, completely by chance (juvenile coloration so they didn't even know what it was) :)

Justinl is this the Juvenile colours or possibly a female or something else? This one I purchased at J&L about 2 months ago. I have seen them at Ocean Aquatics as well.


http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...IMG_1551-1.jpg

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/IMG_1550.jpg


Chris

my yellow wrasse did it great for me.

Chris, your fish is not H. melanurus. It is H. ocellatus. H. melanurus (aka tail-spot wrasse) has a spot in the middle of its dorsal fin and another on the dorsal side of its caudal peduncle. Your fish has two spots on the dorsal fin, none on the peduncle. The facial patterns tell me it is H. biocellatus. It's still growing as the full adults lose the dorsal spots but it's almost there.

H. melanurus
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Spec...ry.php?id=4858

H. biocellatus
http://www.fishbase.org/summary/spec...ry.php?id=5627

H. biocellatus shows up more often than H. melanurus but it is still a very pretty fish.

Thanks for the ID, I was thinking it was the wrong one.

Chris