Flasher Wrasse Stocking Question... Too Many Wrasses 12/05/2007
Good Evening,
<Good evening Jonathan, Mich here.>
After reading all of the information about the Flasher wrasse(*Paracheilinus)* species I am left looking for an opinion for stocking my specific tank. I have a 28 gallon Nano-cube (if you are not familiar with the line there is roughly 25g of swimming space with another 3 gals partitioned in the back for filtration and skimming. My tank has been cycled for almost 4 weeks and I just added a small mushroom colony and Zoa colony over the last week. These are already starting to grow larger. The tank also contains 3 species of snail (about 24 total),
<Hopefully 3 species with different diets. other wise I'd worry about starvation.>
a dozen hermits,
<Not a fan.>
and a pair of cleaner shrimp.
<Like these!>
In a few more weeks I will be ready for fish (assuming my tests stay good) and I have been very excited about stocking this tank with Flasher wrasses since before I even purchased the tank.
<The plural form you use here concerns me.>
Your site has provided the most amount of info from the web that I have been able to find to date, so thank-you very much for that!
<There is much here. I'm glad you have found it helpful!>
Now for the actual question:
<OK!>
Will 25gal be sufficient to stock this tank with a trio of *P. mccoskeri *(1 male, 2 female)?
<I would not do this. Generally this should not be done in a tank of less than 100 gallons.>
If not would the *P. attenuatus* be a better choice?
<No, your tank is much too small to house three wrasses. It is questionable if it is big enough for just one.>
Long term the plan is to also have a clown goby (haven't settled on a specific one yet)
<OK. But I would only recommend one wrasse and possibly this goby in a small setting.>
and possibly another interesting invert, along with several more corals.
<Need to be careful here with the potential for allelopathy.>
I appreciate your time and dedication to this "hobby"
<On behalf of Bob and the rest of the crew, we thank you for your kind words. Mich>
-Jonathan

Flasher wrasse in a 30 gal?
Dear WWM Crew,  
I have a 2 1/2 year old 30 gallon mini reef (my first aquarium of any kind) and with the assistance of your site's wealth of info I've managed to avoid any major problems with the possible exception of the "new reef-keeper coral garden syndrome".  Regular harvests of xenia, mushrooms and to a lesser extent frogspawn and Pocillopora are actually coming close to covering the expenditures to maintain the tank, and I'm slowly getting the coral density back to something more reasonable.  
The system has a 10 gallon sump/refugium (About 6 gallons is actual refugium) returned by a Mag 7 and I run 2 skimmers, the original Prizm with a Poly Filter in the media basket and an Aqua-C Remora that I got in May.   I also use an Aqua clear Mini for mechanical filtration and to hold carbon.  Add a Maxi Jet 1200 and I come up with about 29x turnover of the total water volume so there is good movement in the system.  The refugium was originally planted with Caulerpa prolifera but I've switched over to Chaetomorpha (I keep a few runners of the Caulerpa going too.  You never know.) and is lit 24/7.  Ph is 8.3-8.4 just before lights on and never exceeds 8.5.  Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are undetectable.  (In fact I bought a new nitrate test kit to make sure because I never got a reading after the initial cycle.)  Alkalinity is 3 mEq and calcium is 300 ppm.  Both are on the way up slowly as I've just balanced supplementation of Kalk with a regular harvest of corals.
I have three fish currently all for two years.  One 2.75" Ocellaris Clownfish, one 2" Ocellaris Clownfish and one somewhat shy 2.75" Fridmani Pseudochromis.  Until July I had a 3.5" Sixline wrasse too who was my absolute favorite.  He would pose at the front of the tank for people and never stopped moving (or eating, he was a hog).    Unfortunately in August he got out the back of the tank despite my screening.  He must have done a salmon flop up the Prism's outflow or something so I added some more screen there and secured it better.  Hopefully no repeats in the future.  
Now with all of the background done here is my question!  I have been looking at adding another fish to replace my late Sixline.  Since he's been gone the clowns don't come out of their xenia forest much at all and the male has taken to biting me when I put my hand in the tank.  (Or maybe he likes the taste of rubber.)  Just less activity overall and I think that losing the #1 eater/pooper may have at least indirectly led to the demise of my fighting conch.   I figured that getting a fish to fill a similar niche in the tank was probably a good idea but wanted to try something a little different like maybe one of the smallest of fairy wrasses or a flasher wrasse.  After a lot of research I have decided that a Carpenter's flasher wrasse would be a nice fit.  The only hang up is that several sources suggest that maintaining just one is not optimal for the fish's long term health and coloring.  My Sixline would flare and show off all the time and I'd like to encourage the same behavior in a flasher wrasse.  If I get a pair of juveniles will one end up as a male and one a female? << No, I don't think this is a good idea.  I wouldn't recommend a flasher wrasse for this tank.  If you do get one, then I'd only get one.  They are territorial and aggressive eaters. >> Also will the undivided attention of one male stress a female badly?  I think that my system can sustain two of this size fish no problem but I'm uncomfortable adding more than that since my long term rule from day one was no more than 15" of fish.  (I'm allowing for the clowns to grow a little more.)  So I don't want to add three - I'll choose something else.  I'm not too worried about aggression from the current inhabitants.  The clowns and the Dottyback keep very small territories.  (And I used to catch them and the Sixline schooling together when they thought no one was looking!)  Please let me know if two flasher wrasses will be a suitable number or if they should be maintained in odd groups only.  
<< I'd try one for now. >>
One other question if you don't mind.  I have a 10 gallon quarantine tank with another Aquaclear mini.  (Two sponges are "baking" in the sump right now.)  I was thinking of moving the Prizm skimmer over to the quarantine tank during the month the new fish will be in there.  I would take it off before adding any medications and if any disease does turn up I'll clean it completely with bleach and leave it sit dry for a month or so before returning it to the main tank.  Would I create any complications in the quarantine tank if the skimmer was running in it along with the power filter? << Sounds like a good idea, maybe not necessary but a good idea. >> It seems to me that the new fish would be living in royal digs if they had a skimmer in QT.  
I appreciate your input very much and thanks a ton in advance!
Matt
Three Rivers, MI
<<  Blundell  >>

Filamented Flasher Wrasse Biotope
Crew,
            I am looking for some information; I'd like to set up a filamented flasher wrasse biotope.  I have a 90g tank (48x18x24) with 4x96w PC lights and a completely enclosed hood.  I seem to recall that this wrasse lives at depths of 40 feet or so and that the appropriate lighting would therefore be 20k MH bulbs.  Is this the case, and if so is there any way I can adapt my current lighting to approximate that without switching over to MH.
<your pc are fine use a 20,000k bulb or something on the blue end>
  I'd also like some advice on how many wrasse are appropriate for this size tank.
<if this is the only fish going to be in there you could put 1 male and 6-10 females>  Everything I've read suggests one male to two females, but assuming more than three fish is appropriate for this size tank, I don't know if that formula should be strictly applied to larger groups.  Do these wrasse sleep in the substrate or in rock (i.e. do I have the option of going with a bare bottom tank)?
<they sleep in rock and you do have the opinion for going with out substrate but many little critters live in there that they can eat>
   I was planning on a fairly substantial amount of rock in the tank (at least 150 lbs).  Also, the wrasse seems to have a fairly large geographic area that it's from, and I'm interested in perhaps one or two types of corals that would be consistent with the wrasse's biotope.  Are there any you can recommend?  Again, I've looked around a lot but I can't find the kind of specific information on this particular subject (ex. Many corals are listed as being from Fiji or the great barrier reef but I can't seem to find an appropriate depth listing).
<try Vernon books he lists everything>  Finally, is there any particular restriction on water flow rate for this wrasse?
<lots of flow>
  Any additional recommendations or advice you have would be helpful and much appreciated. Your site has been quite a help thus far, and I look forward to hearing from you.
<I would add the females first let them get settle down the add the male. Also make sure you have tops covering the tank they are jumpers
thanks Mike H>
Thank you.
-Orion