do all wrasse need a sandbed? I would like to keep a few in the 90, but its bare bottom. I know some of them like to sleep in the sand bed.
I’ve seen the green and yellow kept without a sand bed but those dont thrill me too much. I’m more interested in the Bluestar Leopard, Carpenter, McCosker’s, Solar, and other beautiful Wrasse like that.
What are the care levels of these type of wrasse? I believe the Bluestar Leopard are one of the harder wrasse, but boy are they beautiful.
Speaking on what I “thought” I read before, I believe they are a territorial fish who don’t get along much with their own kind so 1 or 2 tops? Can anyone else confirm that?
Also I think they need a lot of pods to consume like mandarin who are tough to get to eat hobby food.
I have always wanted to pick Ellen’s brain on this one. She’s too good for the club any more though. Prefers to play with bugs over us reef geeks.
haha, she had something like 4 maybe more, and she kept the bluestar leopard.
She told me that she introduced them by putting them in a large tupperware containor until the other wrasse no longer showed agression.
i will probably QT the fish for a week or two, trying to get them fat and happy and eating pellets and other food.
At least you are aware of the issues, hope you have luck with them.
I would love to get another one, my old one went carpet surfing 
Very careful trying to make a fish fat in QT tank. Monitor chemistry carefully and daily water changes. It’s not easy.
The other thing to keep in mind is wrasse are jumpers in any tank. In a new shallow bare bottom QT tank… some sort of lid is recommended. Just don’t cut off air, use a screen of some sort and make sure the tank stays oxygenated.
yeah considering making a top/screen for the aquarium. Ellen also had a lid on her tank.
im still thinking about what i want to do to ensure that the screen dosnt interfear with the light (im going to use the stuff you put over blueberry bushes) I just dont want the legs of my fixture sitting on the net.
Ive been doing a little reading about species whom’s habitats are sand beds and keeping them in BB tanks…not much scientific evidence if any, but a lot of info from us hobbyist.
I would also like to keep some sand dependant species in my BB tank but have yet to take the venture…
Ive been reading recently of people using tupperware containers to incorporate sand beds in their BB tanks…
This is something that could work!!! I myself am interested in keeping a lot of gobies that usually require/depened on sand sifting to get food…
anyone have any info with the sand box method? or keeping fish typically dependant on sand in an environment with little to no sand?
Keeping sand in a little dish I think will significantly take away from the look of a display. First of all you are only going to keep the sand in the dish if it is low flow. How far have hobbyist come to try to make sure there isn’t a low flow area in there tanks. If you did do this then you would have an area with low flow and sand = high maintenance and requiring frequent vacuuming. Not easy at all to maintain.
I could be wrong someone could find a way to make it easily maintainable and so that it doesn’t take away from the appearance of the aquarium, but I dunno.
Brett(BZ) wants Vortex, Mike(longballz) has Vortex for those of you reading along. So neither have low constant flow aquariums.
One thing I would warn against. If you see the fish in the store and have to have it and figure on setting up something soon which will suite it’s needs… do things the right way. Set up the environment first and have it running for at least several weeks before purchasing the animal.
If you think you want to try it at some point set it up soon before you see that animal in your LFS and have to have it then you are know you are ready and can take care of it.
Yeah it wouldn’t be too visually appealing at all and in my tank there isn’t a place I could put one without the dish being emptied into the tank…but with the extra tank u plan on using as a frag tank could be a species tank. I have another little drilled tank I’m going to add to my system to keep either the gobies or a hawkfish.
If I had to make something tho I would build a square structure with egg crate and make a sand box out of acrylic or something. Then attach rock to the egg crate and stash my box underneath/behind the structure. I’m just going to plumb in an extra tank with sand and go from there…