Common Cleaner Wrasse – Should he stay or should he go?

So I have this common cleaner wrasse I picked up a few months ago. I bought him from a local fish store, where he was a trade in. the back story is that he had spent at least a year or two in a large established tank.

I had the LFS feed him for me so I could see and he was eating both frozen and flake. I figured he was good find – so I took him home.
Brought him home got him into the tank and everything was good.



After a few weeks I noticed an empty nassarius snail shell. Didn’t thing much of it, then a few days later while feeding the tank a see one of my nassarius rise out of the sand to get some food, then here comes the cleaner wrasse. He makes a strong bee-line to the snail and viciously grabs it’s snorkel and started swinging the poor snail back and forth. He drops him and then goes at it again. He wasn’t trying to eat it, he just wanted to destroy it.

The snail limped off and buried itself right way – the whole time with the cleaner wrasse hovering over it and picking at it. He’s pretty much done this to all the snails it the tank to some degree, the Turbos aren’t bothered too much , but the nassarius I have left only come out at night now – (they don’t risk the daylight). It's like the cleaner wrasse really just hates snails :-/

I have a Copperband BF I’ve had for a little over a year, and the cleaner wrasse has been paying close attention to the B/F’s left gill. The Copperband does not always like it, and will sometimes swim away quickly. So I took a closer look as well and find that the Copperband's left gill is red and swollen (but otherwise acting/eating normally).

Now, the cleaner may be helping, but he may also be exasperating the issue. Given the strange behavior with the snails, and now the issue with the CopperBand’s gill. What would you do – keep the cleaner wrasse, or take him back tot he LFS for trade?

 

That is a tough one. I have kept my royal pain of clown that bites me, has to be removed from the tank in order to work on it, kills all other fish and shrimp that I add. I keep her because she is a clown and that is what clowns do.

I guess you will eventually decide how much these behaviors bug you and disrupt the tank.

 

Be sure it is a cleaner wrasse and not an imposter.The fact that it is attacking your snails leads me to believe it is NOT a Cleaner Wrasse.

False Cleanerfish, Aspidontus taeniatus Quoy & Gaimard, 1834 - Australian Museum
If you notice the imposter feeds on tubeworms.

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/6066

 

I kind of thought the same thing - the fish's coloration and strip pattern is slightly different than most of the examples I see online for a cleaner wrasse.

I have not however been able to find a 100% ID one way or the other. Most of it's behavior is what you would expect, but it's aversion to snails is odd.

 

Can you get a side shot.The upper jaw is much more pronounced.I could never tell them apart based soley on color.See if you can get a side shot with it "flashing" that would be even better as the dorsal is usually slightly different as well.

Mr. Bill has a cleaner.Not sure if he mixes his with snails but I think he does.I will vm him this thread so he can chime in.

 

I'll see if i can get a shot tomorrow. Lights are already out for the evening. He's not easy to get clear photo of of since he's always moving :-/

 

This

 

This made me curious, found this on RC

Good post James! Ya beat me to it!!! That's the easiest way to ID them is the position of the mouth and not by color. The mouth of the blenny is underneath the snout and the mouth of the wrasse is on the end of the snout.
By member Hypsoblennius.

After looking at images of the two, it's fairly easy to tell them apart.

 

Yes, I do have mine with snails and tubeworms, and haven't had any issues in over two years. FWIW, the mimic blenny also likes a little nip of fin or slime coat occasionally, hence the reason they mock the cleaner wrasse; what you're seeing on the butterfly's gill plate may be irritation or the start of an infection from that activity. I'd definitely get a positive ID ASAP, or return him just to be safe.

 

I agree. I just need to figure out what kind of cleaner this is, and if his behavior is helping or hurting.

So below are the photos I was able to capture this morning. I tried to get as clear an image as possible of his mouth area. I couldn't get him to flash at me, but then I don't thing I've ever seen him flash

The mouth to me looks like it's more forward. If I'm not mistake, I mimic would have a more pronounced upper jaw?

What's everyone's take on this?