Tswifty's Custom 40g Rimless Build Thread

[Goodwin9]

Originally posted by Tswifty
Yeah it was pretty cheap. Funny thing is that they had it labeled as a "Yellow Coris" on the tag, but right underneath of the common name they had the scientific name, which listed Halichoeres chrysus. So that's why I decided to purchase it... I was specifically looking for a wrasse in the Halichoeres genus.

Regardless, it's doing exactly what I had hoped for though... picking relentlessly at the rocks, around corals, etc...

That's what's important! Doesn't always work out that way in my case...

[klondike4001]

Just keep in mind that they are notorious jumpers. I've lost 2 (1 thru bird netting) and my parents lost one thru bird netting as well.

[melev]

So it is a Canary Wrasse then? Thanks. I've had two or three Yellow Coris' and they didn't look like that at all.

One I had was grew to maturity and never lost the black dot though.

[Tswifty]

That's what I think. I couldn't find any information on a Yellow Wrasse in the Coris genus.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/fi...oris/index.htm

Here is the closest thing I could find to your pics:

Halichoeres leucoxanthus

Common names:
Canarytop Wrasse, Lemon Meringue Wrasse, Whitebelly Wrasse, Yellow Wrasse

[melev]

The fish with a white belly is the Lemon Meringue, and the one that is all yellow with the same black dots in the Yellow Coris. Currently, I have a Yellow Coris in my reef that is probably about two years old.

[kudora]

Originally posted by Tswifty
Yeah it was pretty cheap. Funny thing is that they had it labeled as a "Yellow Coris" on the tag, but right underneath of the common name they had the scientific name, which listed Halichoeres chrysus. So that's why I decided to purchase it... I was specifically looking for a wrasse in the Halichoeres genus.

Regardless, it's doing exactly what I had hoped for though... picking relentlessly at the rocks, around corals, etc...

oh nice well thats whats important

[Tswifty]

Originally posted by melev
The fish with a white belly is the Lemon Meringue, and the one that is all yellow with the same black dots in the Yellow Coris. Currently, I have a Yellow Coris in my reef that is probably about two years old.

Gotcha... I wonder if it is in fact in the Coris genus though, or if there is such a thing as a true Yellow Coris Wrasse? From what I've been reading it seems that the Yellow Wrasses are in the Halichoeres genus, but have just been commonly labeled and sold as a Yellow "Coris" Wrasse.

Not like it matters... just thought it was a little interesting/odd.

Originally posted by Goodwin9
That's what's important! Doesn't always work out that way in my case...

Originally posted by kudora
oh nice well thats whats important

I told the guy at the LFS this one would probably do the trick. Simply because I wanted to add any type of fish but a yellow one, since all my Bartlett's are yellow.

However, I'm not complaining at all. After going through 5 or 6 others I'm just glad this one is doing well, and the fact it's picking off flatworms has me thrilled.

Originally posted by klondike4001
Just keep in mind that they are notorious jumpers. I've lost 2 (1 thru bird netting) and my parents lost one thru bird netting as well.

Yeah, that's always a risk... even more so with rimless tanks. I cover the tank at night, so we'll see what happens.

[psteeleb]

the common name for a yellow coris is not a coris wrasse at all, it's a Halichoeres chrysus - a better name is just yellow wrasse

any of the Halichoeres are good reef fish and will help keep your corals fee of pests (yellow, green, Christmas, yellow/purple, hoeven, neon, marble are the ones I'm familiar with

[Taqpol]

Originally posted by psteeleb
the common name for a yellow coris is not a coris wrasse at all, it's a Halichoeres chrysus - a better name is just yellow wrasse

any of the Halichoeres are good reef fish and will help keep your corals fee of pests (yellow, green, Christmas, yellow/purple, hoeven, neon, marble are the ones I'm familiar with

My LFS has a Christmas wrasses marked as not reef safe, do you have experience with one, Pete? Are they, like Tj said earlier, coral safe but not shrimp/crustacean safe?

[Tswifty]

Yes Christmas Wrasses are Reef Safe, there's just a chance they can take out ornamental shrimp. I have a few friends with them in reef tanks. The only negative I've heard, is that they can be pretty mean fish once they mature. I've even seen reports of Mystery Wrasses taking out shrimp. I wold imagine that your only 100% reef safe wrasses are going to be the Flasher or Fairy Wrasses.

Here is a picture I took of my friend's Christmas Wrasse in his 180g reef a while back.



He actually recently had a pretty bad tank crash, and lost a lot of his big colonies. The tank is still amazing though, but here is what it used to look like:



On a side note, I was on the phone with Keith today, and noticed an odd sighting in my tank. A small thin fish? Anyway... I walked over to the tank... and it was the Christmas Wrasse!!!

It's unbelievably thin though, and got stuck to the VorTech again. So I tried to catch it in a cup, but as soon as the cup hit the water it freed itself and swam back into the rock work. I hope I can catch it and get it into QT. I really don't think there is anyway it's going to survive if I can't get it into an isolated situation.

[Tswifty]

Another thing about the Christmas Wrasses, I've noticed their coloration/markings can drastically differ in appearance depending on the individual specimen. I'm not sure if it depends on the sex of the fish, juvenile vs. adult, or if it is dependent on the area they are collected from? I've seen bright green ones with horizontal stripes, the one in the picture above, and also a maroon/rust colored variation as well.

[Taqpol]

Originally posted by Tswifty
Another thing about the Christmas Wrasses, I've noticed their coloration/markings can drastically differ in appearance depending on the individual specimen. I'm not sure if it depends on the sex of the fish, juvenile vs. adult, or if it is dependent on the area they are collected from? I've seen bright green ones with horizontal stripes, the one in the picture above, and also a maroon/rust colored variation as well.

That was actually another thing I was going to ask. The one at the LFS looks nothing like the one you posted above, more of a cross between the two I just quoted. I wonder what determines it...

[OwNeD162]

While we're on the topic of Wrasses, is a Sixline Wrasse and a Pajama Wrasse the same thing? They look identical to me?

[DEERE G]

TJ , Did you end up catching the Christmas Wrasse after we last talked ? Is that Joe's tank in the pics above? (Beautiful) Maybe the "yellow" wrasse will finish it's job before it jumps. LOL

[psteeleb]

Originally posted by Taqpol
My LFS has a Christmas wrasses marked as not reef safe, do you have experience with one, Pete? Are they, like Tj said earlier, coral safe but not shrimp/crustacean safe?

I've tried two of the Christmas wrasses but my 6-line killed them. Now that my 6-line is no longer around I'm thinking about gettting a couple of the Halichoeres

like stated they can go after smaller shrimp

[Tswifty]

Originally posted by OwNeD162
While we're on the topic of Wrasses, is a Sixline Wrasse and a Pajama Wrasse the same thing? They look identical to me?

Yeah, that's another name for it. When in doubt... just count the lines.

The LFS here also had a Twelve Line Wrasse in stock. I hadn't seen one before, and didn't have any information on it... so I had to pass, but it was a sharp looking fish. Apparently they're not supposed to be as aggressive as the Six Lines.

Originally posted by DEERE G
TJ , Did you end up catching the Christmas Wrasse after we last talked ? Is that Joe's tank in the pics above? (Beautiful) Maybe the "yellow" wrasse will finish it's job before it jumps. LOL

No, he scooted back into the rocks. My little sister said she saw it a little later, but the Mystery Wrasse chased it away somewhere. Hopefully it'll come back out tomorrow. It had to be looking for food, I haven't seen it eat since I added it.

Yeah those pics were from Joe's place.

Originally posted by psteeleb
I've tried two of the Christmas wrasses but my 6-line killed them. Now that my 6-line is no longer around I'm thinking about gettting a couple of the Halichoeres

like stated they can go after smaller shrimp

I really like the Radiant Wrasse as well as the Christmas Wrasse. Also, Leopard Wrasse pairs are very cool, and are supposed to be good for pest control.

If I was adding them again, I would try and add them all at once. That way no one has staked out territory ahead of time.

[Tangweed]

[i]
I've tried two of the Christmas wrasses but my 6-line killed them. Now that my 6-line is no longer around I'm thinking about gettting a couple of the Halichoeres

like stated they can go after smaller shrimp

Same thing with me. My sixline saved my yellow tang by picking ich off of him but killed every other fish I ever tried to add. I got rid of him. I would like to try another type of wrasses later on. Should a wrasses be the last fish added?

[Taqpol]

I would LOVE to add a pair of leopard wrasses, but I also want a pair of mandarins.... I think that would be waaay to much competition for my pod population. As it is I think I will limit myself to two primarily pod eaters, so two leopard wrasses, two mandarins, or one of each. Do you think thats feasible?

[OwNeD162]

My sixline is as peaceful as anything... I added him last to make sure everyone else had their dominance setup first, but he gets along fine with my two clowns, and my royal gramma. The gramma likes to open his mouth towards him, but thats only cause the sixline likes to swim near the gramma's cave...

[IridescentLily]

I loved seeing the video you made of your tank Tswifty. It's way cool that you did that!

[Tswifty]

Originally posted by Tangweed
Same thing with me. My sixline saved my yellow tang by picking ich off of him but killed every other fish I ever tried to add. I got rid of him. I would like to try another type of wrasses later on. Should a wrasses be the last fish added?

I've even heard stories of them starting off nice and peaceful, then turning into real nightmares once they mature. Even starting to pick on fish that had been in the tank the entire time with them. After hearing one of my buddies stories about having to remove a few of them for that reason. I decided not to pick one up.

I don't have a ton of experience with Wrasses, but so far it seems like if you have a wrasse established in the tank already... it's going to be difficult. Like I said, my Mystery Wrasse went nuts when I added the Canary Wrasse... and I had always heard that Mystery Wrasse's were big babies. So now I'm positive it was to blame for the other's going missing. The only thing in the Canary Wrasse's favor was that it was large enough that the Mystery Wrasse's attacks didn't really phase it.

The Mystery Wrasse still goes after the Canary Wrasse when they get too close to one another, but for the most part the Canary Wrasse seemed to get the game... stay away from the little crazy colored rocket... and don't get hurt.

Originally posted by Taqpol
I would LOVE to add a pair of leopard wrasses, but I also want a pair of mandarins.... I think that would be waaay to much competition for my pod population. As it is I think I will limit myself to two primarily pod eaters, so two leopard wrasses, two mandarins, or one of each. Do you think thats feasible?

Personally, I would go with a pair of one or the other. Mainly because I think it's cool to watch them interact, but also I've heard that Leopard Wrasse's need to be kept in pairs, or it will morph from female (blue coloration) to male (white coloration). I'm not sure how true it is, but it happened to a friend of mine who purchased a sole female, and that was the information he was given.

Originally posted by OwNeD162
My sixline is as peaceful as anything... I added him last to make sure everyone else had their dominance setup first, but he gets along fine with my two clowns, and my royal gramma. The gramma likes to open his mouth towards him, but thats only cause the sixline likes to swim near the gramma's cave...

You must have gotten lucky like Marc. That tang he calls a sixline wrasse is massive, and I'm pretty sure he told me it never bothers anything.

Originally posted by IridescentLily
I loved seeing the video you made of your tank Tswifty. It's way cool that you did that!

Glad you liked it. I thought it would be fun now that my tank is constantly in motion with all the fish swimming around. I'll have to take one at feeding time when all the fish come out of hiding... then it starts to look like a traffic jam.

[Tangweed]

Quote
I've even heard stories of them starting off nice and peaceful, then turning into real nightmares once they mature.

Add another story to your list. I thought it was the coolest fish but it then became a predator fish.

[ser_renely]

Hope you can get the wrasse out and healthy again.

I just had 2 Fire fish taken out by my pistol shrimp in less then a day. Although not a 100% sure it was one of my pistols it could have been my coral banded shrimp, but I saw a Fire fish go in one of their holes and snap, snap. came out messed up. It disappeared that night, then the next day I found the other all tore up. They also had a really strange mark on the side, not a cut but it looked like a bruise or even a burn, that was one of the reason I deduced it was the pistol even though the banded may have delivered the final blow.

Any experiance with aggressive pistols? The more I read, I seem to find out they can be real nasty sometimes. I have one that is about a couple inches large

Looks like I will have to tear down the tank soon, because anything I put in gets murdered.

[bnmir]

That sounds more like a mantis shrimp than a pistol

[ser_renely]

yeah, more then positive it is a pistol...could be wrong, but he sure looked like a pistol, huge mo fo claw.

when I tank tear, we will see....might try a trap first.