Radiant Wrasse or Green Mandarin?

I would go with the wrasse over the mandarin too, however can you keep to diffirent wrasse, establiashed at diffrent times in a 60 gal?

 

Seems like your choice has already been made (and the right one at that ), but for the record, you may not have as many pods as you think. The Melanurus hunts/eats more pods than you may realize, and might out-compete a mandarin in food supply.

 

mandarins are very beautiful but the reason you dont see many people having them is beause they are a pain in the ass to keep! go with the wrasse man youll have a way better chance of success. also a 60 gallon tank is a little on the small side for a kole tang i would consider that.

 

A radiant wrasse is probably one of the best wrasses to put into a tank.
My vote goes for radiant as you will be much happier with one than with a mandarin.

 

Also your melanurus and the radiant are both the same genus (halichoeres) which is known to be one of the most passive/docile types of wrasses out there. The two will not fight and will most likely not even fight with any other tank inhabitants ever.

 

I'd go with the mandarin if you can find one already eating frozen foods as mine sdo. I love wrasses though, but I won't put my mandarins at risk having to compete for the limited pods in the tank.
Also mine are out all the time but then again I don't have a huge amount of rock.

 

the two wrasse shouldn't fight and mandarins are hard to keep unless captive bred!

 

it doesnt matter if the mandarins are tank bred they need to be eating freeze dried food unless your up for the challenge of pods and mysis

 

Just wanted to add my experience with Radient wrasse
model citizen in my tank, never bothered anything else including canary wrasse

they are described as reef safe with caution
they will eat any small inverts they can fit into their mouths
and that includes fanworms/ tube worms etc

one other habit mine had was occasionally it would take a peck at any expossed snail mantle, but the snail would react by dropping shell to cover itself and the wrasse moved on

Steve

 

Thanks for the info, that is pretty much how my melanurus behaves, him and my kole tang are best buddies haha

My final stock will be:
Melanurus
Kole Tang
2 Percula Clowns
1 Purple Firefish
Radiant
Royal gramma or pacific redstripe hogfish