wrasse ID please

aerius007 · Aug 21, 2009

The pic doesnt do it justice, it wont stop moving and its in the shade in this pic, but you get the idea...

Sikryd · Aug 21, 2009

It looks to be a female Ornate Wrasse -
Halichoeres Ornatissimus

Does it always look like that, or is it stressed?
I'm just wondering for ident. purposes.

aerius007 · Aug 22, 2009

It always looks like that. I have had it for 2 months, it is super fat and a great eater. I was told it is a Sri Lonka Xmas Wrasse. The more known xmas wrasse is a Tonga. I paid less than $30 and its a good size. I think they called it an xmas because of the green red/pink markings on its face.

Sikryd · Aug 22, 2009

aerius007 said:
It always looks like that. I have had it for 2 months, it is super fat and a great eater. I was told it is a Sri Lonka Xmas Wrasse. The more known xmas wrasse is a Tonga. I paid less than $30 and its a good size. I think they called it an xmas because of the green red/pink markings on its face.

Xmas wrasse is the same as the Ornate, its just a different common name give to it.

Cool fish!

Do you have a tank thread yet? I want to see a FTS - you have posted some pretty sweet pictures of stuff lately :nerd:

aerius007 · Aug 22, 2009

Thanks for the compliment, I noticed the ornate/xmas as soon as I google searched, thanks for the heads up. So the males are darker and females are this color? I never could find anything about sri lonka or tonga. This one is actually in my frag tank. I have a beautiful mystery wrasse in my 14g biocube. Once the sixline makes it into the 2-liter trap that is in my display I can put the mystery in there. What are the chances of being ok with adding the xmas and mystery at the same time?

Murfman · Aug 22, 2009

It is a picture Wrasse. I just picked on up two weeks ago, awesome looking fish;

Sikryd · Aug 22, 2009

aerius007 said:
Thanks for the compliment, I noticed the ornate/xmas as soon as I google searched, thanks for the heads up. So the males are darker and females are this color? I never could find anything about sri lonka or tonga. This one is actually in my frag tank. I have a beautiful mystery wrasse in my 14g biocube. Once the sixline makes it into the 2-liter trap that is in my display I can put the mystery in there. What are the chances of being ok with adding the xmas and mystery at the same time?

Yeah its hard to get info on the different species from some outlying areas. I really like some of the different colors that the different areas provide, and am actually waiting for a specific fish and its is a lot harder and takes long to get.

They should be fine together. The only problem I have with my mystery wrasse is that he will bug most of my new fish and try to bully them around if they let him. Now that they have all been settled in for a while, he is pretty cool with everyone.
They will bully the Macropharyngodon's though - like the potters and leopards, from my experience. Their attitude can be similiar to a 6 lines sometimes. I got mine small so he would grow up with the other fish. So far so good.

Sikryd · Aug 22, 2009

Murfman said:
It is a picture Wrasse. I just picked on up two weeks ago, awesome looking fish;

Murph might be right - Here is a link to a bunch of pictures of the Picture Wrasse - still in the Hali species.

There isn't any info in my Wrasse book on them. And not much online.

Out of all the pictures only this one looks like yours -

aerius007 · Aug 22, 2009

Man, I still have no idea what the heck this wrasse is. It doesnt look much like murfs picture up close, it was just under my frag rack and shaded. It does look a bit like the above pic though, if you look just behind the eye there is a yellow marking with blue outline, almost like a second eye. Mine does match that perfectly. Shrimp eaters?

Sikryd · Aug 22, 2009

aerius007 said:
Man, I still have no idea what the heck this wrasse is. It doesnt look much like murfs picture up close, it was just under my frag rack and shaded. It does look a bit like the above pic though, if you look just behind the eye there is a yellow marking with blue outline, almost like a second eye. Mine does match that perfectly. Shrimp eaters?

It might eat shrimp if it has an appetite for them already, or when it gets bigger.
Thats just kind of the chance you take with a lot of wrasses.
I got my mystery small, hoping he wouldn't have an appetite for them. So far ~5 months and he is cool with all my shrimp, but when he gets bigger it could be a different story. Kind of an individual thing, and how well you feed them, and how much.
I feed my wrasses 3x a day.

I'm pretty sure it is a Halichoeres nebulosus from your picture and looking it up online.