400 gallon project

Jason McK · #1 01-17-2008, 03:58 AM

White Cheek (Acanthurus japonicus) is my all time favorate fish.

Looks Great.

J

argan · #2 01-17-2008, 06:04 AM

Untamed, you may have a trickster in your tank. What that wrasse is doing sounded familiar to me, so Check out this link.

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordp...ple-disguises/

Delphinus · #3 01-17-2008, 06:30 AM

I was just going to say ... I'm pretty sure that's a false cleaner wrasse (not a real cleaner). The cincher is that you said he's eating prepared foods ...

A real cleaner wrasse won't leave bite marks.

Some more reading.. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/labroiidfaqs.htm
http://www.uog.edu/marinelab/fish/sp...taeniatus.html

Not sure what to suggest. The last page there says most fish will learn to stay away from them but I imagine that's in the context of the wild, not a captive aquarium. I think you may want to get him out of there, for the sake of your other fish.

Sorry and good luck!!! (Or should I say "Happy hunting"?)

untamed · #4 01-17-2008, 04:56 PM

It's not a Fang Blennie. It's taken me quite a while to find a decent photo of a Fang Blennie in order to see the underslung mouth. (assuming that is the ONLY distinguishing feature...and that's debatable)

My "Wrasse" does not have the distinct underslung mouth of a Fang Blennie. I'll see if I can get a better photo. Meanwhile, I'll continue to watch him closely.

Delphinus · #5 01-17-2008, 04:58 PM

I guess I mistook his nostril for a bite mark.

I didn't know if cleaner wrasses would leave marks at all on other fish.

Well, hopefully you have one of the good guys after all. I'm still sort of shocked to hear of one that eats prepared foods, but maybe you have the 1 in 100, sort of thing.

untamed · #6 01-17-2008, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I guess I mistook his nostril for a bite mark.

I didn't know if cleaner wrasses would leave marks at all on other fish.

Well, hopefully you have one of the good guys after all. I'm still sort of shocked to hear of one that eats prepared foods, but maybe you have the 1 in 100, sort of thing.

Ha..ha..yes, I would be much more concerned if those were bite marks! That made me laugh...thanks. The Naso is the only fish with visible marks. The others get cleaned, but the nibbles just don't show like they do on Moe's perfect grey complexion.

The wrasse attemps to eat anything that seems small enough to get into his mouth. A small pellet is too large for him...but he'll work at them for quite a while. Mostly, I feed a chopped up mess of squid, clam, octopus, and shrimp. There's always lots of really small bits for him to eat.

Delphinus · #7 01-17-2008, 06:25 PM

Just a thought .. NLS makes a pellet called "Grow" (or something like that). It's a really small pellet intended for fish fry. I feed it to my FW tank because I have a number of really small fish in there. I wonder if it would be an appropriate sized pellet?