Cleaner Wrasse??

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by naesco

From time to time guys of your ilk hit the board. They ignore the advice of experts. attack fellow posters personally, and encourage fellow reefers to push things to the limit with the resultant fish and coral carnage.
Thankfully guys like you come and go because ultimately their tanks turn to a bio mass of algae and gunk and they leave the hobby.

Well, looks like I got your attention, Naesco. That's good. My problem with you is that you like to do these hit and runs with false or misleading information. In this case, you said, "The chances of a cleaner wrasse surviving more than a week or two are almost nil". You ignore other posters that have recent success stories with these fish, and gave some good advice on increasing the chances of being successful. You did the same to me on a past thread about Copperband Butterflies, when I spoke about my success, as did others. When I questioned your experience, it was more than 20 years ago, and you even admitted that you just plopped it into a display tank without QT, and tried to feed it flake food. Needless to say, that Copperband didn't have a chance.

In this case, the OP had already heard that Cleaner Wrasse may be a difficult fish to keep in captivity, and was looking for other peoples thoughts. A number of people posted to provide helpful hints that might increase his chances of success. I don't think your first post with the above statement is what the OP was looking for. If you had just given the links as in your 2nd post, and perhaps offered some suggestions, that might have been taken more positively.

As for Myka, I hope I didn't offend her, and for sure, I apologize if she was. Most of our discussion focused on the contrast between you and Daniella, who has a lot of direct experience with keeping difficult fish and corals. Instead of just slapping people (which she can do, too), she is continuously offering good advice (often new and unique), and trying to be helpful. You could take some lessons from her, and probably learn a lot too, about some of these difficult fish.

Just trying to give you some advice here, Naesco, to perhaps improve your image and credibility, so that your point isn't always lost because of how you post and put people off. Blatant, over the top statements like the one above do not help your cause at all.

As for me, I have my own soapbox I get up on from time to time. I try not to overdo it, as I know I will just be ignored then. And that is QT. I think we have more "carnage" in this hobby because of Ich and other diseases, than just "difficult fish" dying. I also get a little upset when I hear some people on this forum advocate against QT, and "just feed garlic". Then I read about the disasters every couple months in people's tanks.

So if we do have anything in common, Naesco, it is to try and promote responsible behavior with reef keeping. That includes sharing knowledge and trying to help others through their challenges. I know you have been in the hobby a long time, so am sure you have lots to contribute as well.