Cheers (capture)
Just poured a stiff drink in celebration of the capture of my Lunare Wrasse!
I didn't do proper research as I should have and bought him a couple of weeks ago. I finally sat down & properly researched the fish AFTER putting him in my 135g reef and was shocked by the bad reports relating to Lunare Wrasse's aggressiveness towards small fish, shrimp, crabs & snails. Someone even wrote that the Lunare Wrasse must be part Great White! :blink
For the past two weeks I have been trying to catch him and just five minutes ago I netted his sly arse and put him in my 30 gal fuge (probably to be sold in the for sale forum soon).
One interesting thing is that, aside from nipping at some Nassarius snails and bullying a watchman goby, I didn't see any other unusually aggressive behavior towards the other fish or shrimp (clowns/chromis/CB/sailfin), perhaps because I purpously kept him very well fed.
On the capture: I started out with an egg crate box with a door which he did eventually enter but not when I was near the tank. Second to that, I put my net in the tank, resting above his hiding hole with the handle sticking out above the water line. It took about a week but he got used to that net sitting there and when the MH's went out tonight and only the actinics were on I turned out the lights in the room so he couldn't see me & sat there with the net handle in my hand. After a few minutes he came right in front of it and I got him on the first try. Others have reported success with the coke bottle method but there has been mention that wrasses can get out of it too easily so I didn't try. Upon getting to know this wrasse over the past couple of weeks I learned that he's a sly as my Coral Beauty (paranoid to a fault).
Moral of the story: Reading the LFS's book on a fish is not sufficient research... Not to mention that they didn't warn me aside from saying that he might go after some crabs.
Now I just hope that my watchman goby starts showing his face again before starving.
Have a good one,
Mark
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