Mystery Wrasse: Complete Care Guide

In this article, we will be talking all about the Mystery Wrasse, also knowns as the White Barred Wrasse or Five Barred Wrasse. This is a prevalent yet scarce fish to find in the aquarium hobby.

Mystery Wrasse

Price: You will typically spend a whopping $140 to get one of these fish in your tank, and the prices keep increasing as their size grows.

Tank Size: We recommend keeping this fish in a tank size of at least 75 gallons when they get fully grown. They do grow to a decent size, but they are only just an inch and a half long when they are juveniles. So, if you end up putting them in a 30 gallon and then upgrading as they get bigger, it would also work out well.

Care Level: They are super easy to take care of. They tend to eat quickly, and they are just really hardy, so that it will do fine with all the levels of expertise. 

Temperament: They are semi-aggressive, somewhere parallel to the six-line wrasse. They will be more territorial in the bigger tank if they have more room to run around, and this way, they will not be aggressive towards other fish.

Reef Safe: Yes, they are a fantastic reef fish to have. When they are in the wild, they swim through the reef all the time so that you can put them in your reef tank. They will do great in there and look very pretty.

Water Chemistry

  • Temperature: You want to keep the temperature from 72-78 degrees Fahrenheit
  • dKH: 8-12
  • pH: 8.1-8.4
  • Salinity: 1.020-1.025

Keep all the parameters stable, and you will be good to care for this fish. For acclimation, treat them just like other fish. They don't have any special acclimation needs.

Maximum Size: they do get about 5-inches. So, this indeed is a pretty giant wrasse. Therefore you want to make sure that they have plenty of room to swim around.

Color: They have a pink-red body, yellowtails, and purple stripes throughout their body. It is undoubtedly a pretty fish to have in your tank, especially if you have some friendly LEDs on the top to accent the pink and blue. It will look just spectacular swimming in and out of the living rock.

Diet

They are a carnivore. You have to feed them meaty things. Frozen cubes, Mysis, and Brine Shrimps are their favorite. Eventually, they can also get on flake and pellets, but make sure you still feed them meaty food every once in a while.

Compatibility

You can have multiple Wrasse in a tank, but it is not recommended to put together two mystery wrasse, but it is better to stick to just one breed or Wrasse. So typically, if you have a 30-gallon, then we recommend you have one wrasse, then you move up to 55 to 60-gallon tank, you can get home two of them, and so forth.

Live Rock

The more territory you give the Wrasse, the better off keeping multiple Wrasse in one tank together. they will need plenty of live rock and soft sand bend in the tank. It will give them plenty of places to run around. In the beginning, they can be shy, so be patient and give them time to come out. They will come out to eat, and once they get comfortable, they will stating coming out more often.

They are always on a search for pests in the tank. For example, if they are in a coral tank, they will always look for flatworms and snails and even go after bristle worms. So, they will help you keep the tank clean and rid of pests.

As they grow to full size, they can go after your ornamental shrimps and other smaller inverts. But a lot of time, if you have that kind of inverts in the tank before you introduce them, then the possibility is they will never bother them.

Happy Fishkeeping!

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