Experience with this fish

[Andicot]

Sorry if this is wrong section.
Have you have experience with this fish? I think Halichoeres melanurus.
Is really reef safe? Problems with clam? I buy it for flaworms, now is in refugium and i ask you before put in main tank.

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

Sorry if this is wrong section.
Have you have experience with this fish? I think Halichoeres melanurus.
Is really reef safe? Problems with clam? I buy it for flaworms, now is in refugium and i ask you before put in main tank.

Not the wrong section that I can tell ...

Looks like a Halichoeres melanurus to me ... AKA Tail-Spot wrasse (fishbase), Orange-Tip Rainbow fish (Burgess), and Wardley's wrasse (104th street ... LAX wholesalers).

Just to be sure, here are some image databases of Halichoeres melanurus:

FishBase.org Pictures
Google Pictures



He's got the right genus and mouth/skull structure for relative safety in terms of corals, and my experience is that they are "coral safe". However, he's definitely a predator of other genera/specimens generally kept in captive reef systems.

I'm not so sure that he's a "safe" addition for your system. In the wild, I can't find any reference to him being an Cnidarian predator ... but there are potentially some issues. If you have crustaceans ... they are definitely on his menu ... as are Gastropods, and Mollusks. Then again, he only gets to be ~12 cm long ... so he might not bother larger crustaceans and Tridacna clam species.


Hmmm ... your clam(s) may not be happy to see him being introduced ...

... :destroy:


Fishbase lists rcorded stomach contents as ...

... "zoobenthos", more specifically ... benthic crustaceans, non-specific crabs, galatheid crabs, tanaids, crustacean fragments, harpacticoid copepods, amphipods, amphipod eggs, Gammaridea species, Caprellidea species, "zooplankton", planktonic invertebrates, invertebrate eggs, Foraminiferans, fish eggs, polychaete worms, "errant" polychaetes ... I guess they were "bad, incorrect, or lost" before being consumed ... hehe ... don't you just love the way field biologists record data? ... serpulids, terebellids, sipunculids, mollusks, gastropods, pelecypods, "plants", benthic algae & "weeds", filamentous algae, algal fronds, chitons, and detritus.

For the original chart I got the dietary stuff from:
Diet Composition Summary for Halichoeres melanurus

For more stuff regarding Halichoeres melanurus from FishBase.org ...

General Description and Summary
Ecology
Ecosystems where Halichoeres melanurus occurs


Generally speaking, I'm not so sure that "reef safe" isn't an oxymoron ...


JMO ... HTH

[Andicot]

Thank for you reply. I'm not sure to put in main tank.