Wrasses fighting

[asylumdown]

My tank recently went through some major stocking changes, and I'm having a hard time getting everyone to get along.

Specifically, I bought a lineatus wrasse, and a pair of Flame wrasses within a week of each other. The lineatus went in first, and the flames a week later.

Everything I've read about these fish says that they should be able to live together in a 90 gallon system, but the lineatus will not tolerate the flames for one second. It's attacked the male flame to the point where I was afraid it was going to die for a few hours. His fins look like hell, and I've rescued him from the floor once already (he can fit through my cover)

I thought maybe the week the lineatus was in there alone was enough for him to have 'claimed' the tank. So last night I removed every piece of rock in the tank, caught all three wrasses and a mated pair of clowns that were also picking on the flames, re-arranged the rockwork so the it looks like a brand new tank, then re-epoxied all my corals. It took 5 hours. I put the flames back in first, then after the lights went out I put the lineatus back in as well.

This morning it was the same story. The female flame was pinned in the corner next to the heater, and got torpedo'd every time she moved out in to the open, and the male had been beaten in to a tiny dark hole. I thought he was dead.

Thankfully the lineatus was easy to trap, and I have it in a bucket with a heater and a filter.

I've seen plenty of tanks smaller than mine where these fish get along fine, but I don't know what else to do. Is it possible that the female flame is the problem? I have the clowns in my 20 gallon quarantine with a mystery wrasse I need to sell, so if I can't figure out how to make the flame and the lineatus get along I don't know what I'm going to do.

Any suggestions?

[dsaundry]

Personality,
Personality,
Personality,
Plain simple truth is that sometimes fish will not get along. If you are going to introduce fish, rearrange rock before evening and add new fish at night. If you have done that already, you are probably fighting a battle with what you are trying to stock.

[daniella3d]

This is not going to work at all. I had a supposably peacefull checkerboard wrasse and a pacific yellow wrasse and the checkerboard harrassed the yellow until it jumped out, luckily in front of me. I picked it up and put it in a bag and it was sold the same day. One wrasse is enough.

You will eventualy find your other wrasse on the floor or dead, not cool.

Originally Posted by asylumdown

My tank recently went through some major stocking changes, and I'm having a hard time getting everyone to get along.

Specifically, I bought a lineatus wrasse, and a pair of Flame wrasses within a week of each other. The lineatus went in first, and the flames a week later.

Everything I've read about these fish says that they should be able to live together in a 90 gallon system, but the lineatus will not tolerate the flames for one second. It's attacked the male flame to the point where I was afraid it was going to die for a few hours. His fins look like hell, and I've rescued him from the floor once already (he can fit through my cover)

I thought maybe the week the lineatus was in there alone was enough for him to have 'claimed' the tank. So last night I removed every piece of rock in the tank, caught all three wrasses and a mated pair of clowns that were also picking on the flames, re-arranged the rockwork so the it looks like a brand new tank, then re-epoxied all my corals. It took 5 hours. I put the flames back in first, then after the lights went out I put the lineatus back in as well.

This morning it was the same story. The female flame was pinned in the corner next to the heater, and got torpedo'd every time she moved out in to the open, and the male had been beaten in to a tiny dark hole. I thought he was dead.

Thankfully the lineatus was easy to trap, and I have it in a bucket with a heater and a filter.

I've seen plenty of tanks smaller than mine where these fish get along fine, but I don't know what else to do. Is it possible that the female flame is the problem? I have the clowns in my 20 gallon quarantine with a mystery wrasse I need to sell, so if I can't figure out how to make the flame and the lineatus get along I don't know what I'm going to do.

Any suggestions?

[Cranky When Wet]

Sorry to hear about the troubles :-(

I'm pretty certain I saw all three of these fish at the LFS before you got them.

Just wanted to say you've got a seriously hard decision to make because all of them are spectacular-looking fish!!!!!!

Chin up, it happens to the best of reefers... There's no absolute guarantee the balance we want to achieve will happen... the fish make that decision for us all.

Bunny

[Cranky When Wet]

Oh yuck, my previous post sounded/looked awful in print....

Maybe you could put the L' in another system with a couple females of his own? The rarity of the fishy warrants that thought :-)

Hang in there,

Bunny

[asylumdown]

yep, it looks like that's what I'm going to have to do. I'm going to have to do some shuffling to make that happen, which will require selling a mystery wrasse that's in the tank it needs to go live in.