We have one of those little guys that live for about a week, they usually die after they have consumed the parasites from the other fish in the tank. When I first got into the hobby I got one and was surprised how quickly they went to work, but they soon died after they did a great job cleaning the infected fish. It is not really a good idea to do this even if they had enough food to live on; they are susceptible to the same illness that they are usually put in the tank for.
I soon found out they would die from starvation after cleaning the fish. I kept looking and found a tidbit about beef heart as a food supplement. The guy wrote said he was able to keep them alive and breed them wile on beef heart, and his fish are about 2 years old. Thinking that these guys are a good preventive measure and add activity to the tank, I would get one… really, I did same thing most do, I thought I had a parasite, which I did not, and wanted it out, but I did think I could keep it alive with the beef heart.
So Gail and I went to Dillon’s looking for the stuff, no luck there. We eventually went to a carnicia, Spanish for meet market, and asked for beef heart, the guy went into the back and pulled out this red Buick sized piece of meet, then asked if I wanted the whole thing. I said how about 1/2 pound fat trimmed off, it was no problem.
We then went to Sea Dreams and bought a Cleaner Wrasse. We took him home and he went right to work looking for any morsel on the fish, none to be found the fish where clear. I froze the beef heart, and the next day was ready to feed. I shaved off about 1/2 tea spoon and mixed it into some of my defrosted DIY fish food. I fed and that little guy went to town. He ate so much that I could see his stomach bulge. I have never seen a Cleaner Wrasse's stomach bulge from eating; they usually take prepared food in then spit it out.
We bought this guy 9/07/07 and he is still alive. He is now eating the DIY Frozen food; I only give the beef heart once a week. He is also not pestering the fish like most I have seen.
Here he is cleaning my
Red Sea Sailfin, dang camera just will not get a close up pic.
