# Hit or miss experiences with fish?



## WateraDrop (Nov 16, 2008)

Hello there! Several days ago, I purchased a cleaner wrasse. In my period of learning about cleaner wrasse care beforehand, I got a lot of mixed opinions of these fish from various corners of the internet. 

Some say that this fish is difficult to maintain because of its feeding habits, whereas others say that they've had theirs for years on end (some people said they had them from 2-3 years still alive now). My beloved cleaner wrasse has so far been eating everything I feed it. 

My question really is (well, I'm looking for opinions rather than straight out yes or no since my experience with these fish thus far says yes it is relative to each individual fish) -- does the so-called difficulty of care for marine fish really depend from fish to fish?


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## J_T (Mar 25, 2011)

It depends on "your" tank.

What is easy in my tank, may not be easy in yours. Different water conditions, different equipment.

Cleaner wrasse are finicky. Biggest thing to watch for, is if it bothers the other fish. They nip at the fish slime. That can stress the other fish out.

Posted with my Xperia, using Tapatalk 2


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

WateraDrop said:


> does the so-called difficulty of care for marine fish really depend from fish to fish?


Yes.

But each distinct specie also has it's particular tendencies, which are an average of what has been experienced by fishkeepers in the last few decades.

Reef fishes seem to have more personality than freshwater fish, and with that comes increased diversity in temperament even within a single specie.

The difficulty of caring for marine fish is directly related to that fish's personality as it will affect eating habits, stress, susceptibility to disease, interaction with other tank inhabitants, etc. Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes not so much.

For example, there is a monster thread on RC where everyone inputted their personal experience with each type of angelfish, and all the information was compiled into a database. The results were quite interesting, proving that each fish can be unique in personality and habits, in spite of what others of the same specie have gotten a bad or good reputation for.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Difference between freshwater and saltwater:
Freshwater...get a koi angelfish and stick it in a tank with a filter and possibly a light. Feed it once a day with some flake food.

Saltwater...get a emperor angel put it in a 150g tank and hope it's happy with the rockwork, lighting, temperature, other tank inhabitants, and food you feed it. Will it eat your corals? Will it kill the other fish in your tank? Will it jump out of the tank? 

Good luck with your wrasse though, tell us what happens!


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## WateraDrop (Nov 16, 2008)

Thanks for the great responses. When I started saltwater about two and a half years ago, it was just so overwhelmingly interesting to see the different personalities that each fish would bring with it. 

With regards to the wrasse: it's doing great. It eats perfectly fine. It's in QT at the moment -- probably will leave it in for another 3 weeks before I bring it over to one of my DTs (likely the 120g under the recommendation of the internet).

I had a case of unluckiness with an ocellaris clown just a few weeks ago. Typically (or at least in my experience with them), they're vicious eaters, but this one is proving more difficult to feed than my mandarin (oddly, my mandarin will eat anything including flake, while the clown will only eat pods and garlicky cyclopeeze -- trying to wean him onto flake now though!).


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## mrobson (Mar 5, 2011)

WateraDrop said:


> Thanks for the great responses. When I started saltwater about two and a half years ago, it was just so overwhelmingly interesting to see the different personalities that each fish would bring with it.
> 
> With regards to the wrasse: it's doing great. It eats perfectly fine. It's in QT at the moment -- probably will leave it in for another 3 weeks before I bring it over to one of my DTs (likely the 120g under the recommendation of the internet).
> 
> I had a case of unluckiness with an ocellaris clown just a few weeks ago. Typically (or at least in my experience with them), they're vicious eaters, but this one is proving more difficult to feed than my mandarin (oddly, my mandarin will eat anything including flake, while the clown will only eat pods and garlicky cyclopeeze -- trying to wean him onto flake now though!).


lol sounds like you've got a spoiled brat on your hands but you cant blame him i know id go for the steak before a hotdog


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## nso_168 (Sep 22, 2011)

mrobson said:


> lol sounds like you've got a spoiled brat on your hands but you cant blame him i know id go for the steak before a hotdog


Exactly. Not only that, they have to be trained to recongnize flakes, etc, are food, but not a threat. Some fish are more cautious than others, and some are just stubborn. Interestingly, I recently fed live brine shrimp to my fish - the last time they had live food were over 3 years for some, and at least a year for others. For some reasons they were all scared away hidding for a few minutes when the tiny shrimps were flying all over the water. I guess my fish now used to junk food than steak


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