Cleaner Wrasse Feeding

my LFS keeps getting these cool looking Hawaii Cleaner Wrasses in! Sadly, even the owner has told me to never buy one cause they have such a poor survival! It makes me mad...then why does he keep ordering them when he knows they are going to die

But from what I read, cleaner wrasses should not be kept as they have such a poor survival rate.

I have done very well with my cleaner shrimp...that was until a couple days ago when I accidently cut him in half! I was doing something and the rock that he was hanging under fell and severed his upper part of his body from his lower...was so sad! He was a cool shrimp!

However...my peacock was very appreciative of that! I took his poor body out and gave it to Bob in another tank!

 

wow!, 8 inches! have you actually grown one to this size?

 

Yes, the Hawaiian cleaner wrasse is so beautiful it entices people to try it but I've never heard of even one being successfully kept in a hobbyist aquarium.
I experimented at a local LFS that had some in stock one time as they allowed me to try my feeding regimes on them, but sadly they never took to anything I normally feed the Sri Lankan cleaners.
The cleaner wrasses get to 6-7 inches in about eight years and the one I had that lived to 12 got to 8 inches.
I don't know why there is a difference in Sri Lanka cleaners from other blue streak ones, as they appear to look exactly the same as others, but the other sourced ones I lost about 3/4 of the ones I tried back in the mid 90's before centering my focus on the Sri Lanka ones.
Unfortunately, I have a couple of buyers wanting them but have been unable to get any in lately from our LFS's.
If you buy a cleaner and have some trouble with it eating well, try making a mush of the food so particle size is small. They normally eat smaller particles of food than other similar sized fish, at least until they grow larger.

 

yes, i noticed the tiny mouth. anyway, my cleaner is very lively, do neon gobies behave similarly???

 

my neon spends its time hanging out in one place, usually on the back glass, until a fish comes over and presents itself for cleaning, it then sits on the fish and cleans it. when done it goes back to its hangout. it is a more active cleaner than my cleaner shrimp.

 

my cleaner wrasse behaves very much like my lunare wrasse except for the fact that he persues my other fish to clean them, but he never really sits. thats why i really like them. i just pray that i have a sri-lankan wrasse instead of the other kind. by the way, he definetely isn't a hawaiian rainbow cleaner wrasse.

 

That would not last long with a trigger.

Usually I would suggest a pair of cleaner shrimp, but the aforementioned trigger will make short work of those too.

Cleaner wrasses should not be bought, since they won't live long due to nutritional requirements as said before.

Now maybe if you had 500g tank with enough big fish, you might be able to get away with a cleaner wrasse. But this sort of tank would also proabbly allow you to keep a moorish idol with no issues either.

 

I have a cleaner wrasse for about 12 months now . He eats everything , brine shrimp , flakes and even seaweeds which are meant for my tangs and dwarf angels .Looks strong, lively and happy .