Our mission

Wrasses & sandbed question, help needed

In my tank upgrade I am going to do shallow sandbed (thinking of 1") and not gonna use sugar grain sand any more. But I have few wrasses sleep in sandbed (right now I have sugar grain sand) as least I know a yellow coris & leopard wrasse do so every night. I also have a Lubbock's Fairy wrasse but I have never seen it sleeping in sandbed though.

My question can these wrasses do well & sleep in relatively bigger size sand? If so I can have an area of thicker sand (maybe 3 inch) for them to sleep. If not, as far as I love my yellow coris & leopard (they are nice & fat & lives long time in my tank), I would have to find good home for them.

Thanks in advance.
 
Ryan,

I have a leopard wrasse and a very shallow sand bed in the front of the tank. Basically, the sand is shallow where you can see, and I created a thicker sand bed behind the rocks - out of sight. He immediately took to that place to sleep/bury himself. No problems for me.

I'm looking for a yellow coris too, so if you decide not to keep the little guy, please let me know :)
 
Do you have sugar grain sand?
Someone in RC said sugar sand is must for the leopard, don't know about yellow coris yet.
My yellow coris is about 5" - 6" inch, he is nice & gentle to all other fishes, not only that, he has very interesting personality: I have a multi-color fairy wrasse sometimes behave nasty and picking on small fish such as anthias or cadinal, when this happen guess what, the yellow coris come by & chase away the fairy & stop it picking on small fish. This is 1st time I have seen a 'peacemaker' fish, and when the fairy behave normal, the yellow coris never bother to do anything with the fairy. Very interesting.
 
I have sugar and coarse grain sand mixed together. It came with the tank and for my next tank I'm going to go all sugar. This coarse stuff sucks.

That's awesome with the coris wrasse!
 
One thing I was thinking was to make a couple of small "lakes" or bowls of deeper sugar fine sand.
Basically, make a small 4" high acrylic box, with live rock rubble glued to to it, irregularly.
Then fill that with very fine sand, and put it/them in an area with less flow.
So the box/rubble acts like a dam to keep the sand in, and protects it a bit from flow.
Probably only makes sense in a big tank though and may need more than one, depending on what fish I end up with.

--

Wow, a peacemaker - how cool!
 
Why you don't like coarse grain? Dirty?

I have issue of sugar grain sand, flow can not be too strong, vortech can not be placed too low. And now I have some caynao on sand bed. Also thinking to do BB, but nice white sand looks really nice, when it can be kept white.
 
rygh said:
One thing I was thinking was to make a couple of small "lakes" or bowls of deeper sugar fine sand.
Basically, make a small 4" high acrylic box, with live rock rubble glued to to it, irregularly.
Then fill that with very fine sand, and put it/them in an area with less flow.
So the box/rubble acts like a dam to keep the sand in, and protects it a bit from flow.
Probably only makes sense in a big tank though and may need more than one, depending on what fish I end up with.

--

Wow, a peacemaker - how cool!

Good idea, I could put some behind the LR.

Yeah a fish love peace! At the beginning I did not think about that, but I noticed this becomes a pattern.
 
screebo- what kind of wrasses do you have? IME coris sleeps in sand, but my fairy/flashers tuck in rock crevices and make a kind of cocoon w/ mucous or something like it?
 
The coarse grain gets algae and is dirtier than the sugar grain. I also don't like the look of it - it's too big. WHen I think of a reef, I think of sugar grain sized white sand. I had to move my K-4's around to prevent sand blowing around. But I also have a lot of hermit crabs and different types of snails that run around on the sandbed.

I've seen tanks that have Vortech's and sugar grain sand with no problems. It's all about finding that sweet spot.
 
phishphood said:
screebo- what kind of wrasses do you have? IME coris sleeps in sand, but my fairy/flashers tuck in rock crevices and make a kind of cocoon w/ mucous or something like it?
Lineatus, McCoskers, mystery and a radiant. Yup, all fairy wrasses. All slimers. Well there we go. :cool:
 
Back
Top