housing lots of wrasses

[karpusa]

Hi. I'm using Thalassoma lunare (moon wrasse) in my thesis, and I need 50 pieces of this fish. I already have a dealer, no worries. My problem, however, is how to house this fish. Can a 50 gallon tank be enough for 50 moon wrasses? Or is it too crowded? Please provide suggestions on how large my aquarium should be. Thanks

 

[Stingray12]

1 lunare wrasse cant fit into a 50 gallon. A 75 gallon is the minimum for one. You would need at tank in the thousands to house 50 lunare wrasses, I would suggest to do some research on marine fishes.

 

[sweeTang21]

agreed, a 1500-2000 gallon holding unit would provide enough room for 50 of them. other issues that you will run into are filtration and aggression. Most wrasses do alright together but the same species, with that large of a number, in one area of water may be asking for trouble. The bio load of 50 moon wrasses in 2000 gallons, is still going to be very high, with good filtration including a skimmer.

 

[karpusa]

1 lunare wrasse cant fit into a 50 gallon. A 75 gallon is the minimum for one. You would need at tank in the thousands to house 50 lunare wrasses, I would suggest to do some research on marine fishes.

1 lunare wrasse = 75 gallon aquarium?

"It should reside in a 70 gallon or larger aquarium with larger, aggressive tank mates, and plenty of rocks for hiding." - from liveaquaria.com

How about 3-4 moon wrasse per 50 or 75 gallon-tank? would that be ok?

Please help!

 

[karpusa]

1 lunare wrasse cant fit into a 50 gallon. A 75 gallon is the minimum for one. You would need at tank in the thousands to house 50 lunare wrasses, I would suggest to do some research on marine fishes.

1 lunare wrasse = 75 gallon aquarium?

"It should reside in a 70 gallon or larger aquarium with larger, aggressive tank mates, and plenty of rocks for hiding." - from liveaquaria.com

How about 3-4 moon wrasse per 50 or 75 gallon-tank? would that be ok?

Please help!

 

[Deano1956]

wow thats alot of wrasse!

 

[srikamaraja]

If they are native to your area the cheapest way to make this feasible is with an open flow-through system.

 

[Lupin]

Considering their adult size, why would you keep more than one? It doesn't make sense to me you would try 3-4 in a 75g yet. Will you be keeping them for a lifetime once you're done with your studies for the thesis? If not, plan ahead where you want to rehome the fish. I would not advise releasing the fish in the wild when you're done.

Edit: Out of curiosity, why did you choose this particular fish for the study? I believe the research forums allow just about any species. If so, you should have chosen specimens that are easily accommodated for studies rather than sticking for monster fish that you are unable to accommodate for a long time.

 

[karpusa]

Considering their adult size, why would you keep more than one? It doesn't make sense to me you would try 3-4 in a 75g yet. Will you be keeping them for a lifetime once you're done with your studies for the thesis? If not, plan ahead where you want to rehome the fish. I would not advise releasing the fish in the wild when you're done.

Edit: Out of curiosity, why did you choose this particular fish for the study? I believe the research forums allow just about any species. If so, you should have chosen specimens that are easily accommodated for studies rather than sticking for monster fish that you are unable to accommodate for a long time.

The adult size is about 10 inches in the wild. My dealer got about 4-5 inches moon wrasses, possibly subadult.

Why 50?
My thesis is about anti-feeding properties of an invertebrate. I need to have 10 groups of 3-4 wrasses. The other 10 are reserves.

Why Thalassia lunare?
Thalassia sp. are the fish of choice in anti-feeding assays. They are generalist predators that are commonly found all-throughout the reefs. I'll be keeping it for 4-5 months. After that, I will sell them back to the dealer where I got them.

I am planning to keep them in the lab. I have two 50 gal tanks right now which occupies a lot of space!

 

[karpusa]

hey, I also want to know if they can eat their own kind. They can eat smaller fish. I'm assuming that if all my moon wrasses will have the same size, they will not eat each other. Do you have any info about this?

Also, I'm worrying because they form harems, where the TP male is dominant. Maybe that's the reason why I can't keep them all at the same tank? They may form harems and get territorial?

Please advise! Thanks