what's the difference?

[MamaJones]

I like the neon striped goby and wrasse?

I like the look of the wrasse (right) a little more, but the only info on the website is that it's expert only.
Anyone know why?

 

[hibye]

The wrasse is a cleaner wrasse and will clean any parasites on your fish if they are on there but i heard that they are hard to keep alive but my lfs keeps them for months sometimes before they get sold.

 

[MamaJones]

do you know why they r hard to keep alive?

 

[joeman]

according to my copy of the 'PocketExpert: Marine Fishes' they are difficult to feed because naturally they constantly feed off other fish = 'cleaning' them. They therefore need to be kept in a large tank with lots of other fish, or fed regularly (min 3 times a day). It also says that they may nip at Clams.
It also suggests that we should not buy them so that they are not taken from the reefs where they perform the vital job of parasite control on all the other fishes.

 

[joeman]

Also just looked up the cleaner goby: the reason this one has a better chance of staying alive in an aquarium is that it is not totaly dependent on fish parasites and slime, so as long as you have a sandbed it will find food...

 

[cgoodman381]

Go with the neon gobies. My two have been really happy. The cleaner wrasses are very hard to keep for all reasons mentioned.

 

[Bifferwine]

The wrasses eat the parasites off of fish. Once there are no parasites anymore, they starve to death. They almost always starve to death in our tanks. At the LFS they have much better survival rates because fish stores are constantly getting in new shipments of fish, and new shipments of parasites for them to eat. With a constant food supply, they seem to do okay. In our tanks at home, they don't have new fish rotating in to feed them every few days, so they die. Go with the goby for sure.

 

[MamaJones]

the goby it is...I def. don't want to kill anything. Thanks for the information, everyone!