Coris gaimard

(Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)

Yellow Coris Wrasse

Range: Indo-West Pacific Ocean: Christmas and Cocos-Keeling Islands to Society and Tuamotu Islands, north to Southern Japan and Hawaiian Islands, and south to Australia.

Size: 16 inches (40 cm)

Natural Environment: Inhabits rubble areas and shallow outer reef flats and slopes and usually found at depths between 3 – 150 feet (1– 45 m) where it feeds on benthic invertebrate, usually hard-shelled invertebrates.

General Husbandry: Somewhat common in the trade with juveniles appearing similar to the juvenile Coris formosa and C. cuvieri with an attractive orange body and two short white bars on the head and three on the body, all edged in black. Adult males and females quite similar, having greenish blue body with numerous blue dots, greenish orange face with green lines, and a yellow tail. The male’s body is somewhat darker blue.

Best maintained in fish-only aquariums having a fine sand bed, (0.5 – 2.0 mm) and at least 4 inches deep (For juveniles), along with several rocky crevices to hunt and also open swimming areas. Those in this genus will not only rearrange bottom dwelling corals in its search for tasty bottom dwelling invertebrates, as it will eat smaller fishes, snails, tubeworms, sea stars, cucumbers, urchins, crabs, and shrimp that it can find, it will also quickly burrow into the sand bed if frightened or for sleeping at night. This diving into the sand bed will cause clouds of sand particles to be dispensed into the water, and would cause various corals harm, therefore, as mentioned above, those in this genus, depending upon their size, are not often recommended for reef aquariums.

Preferable tankmates are those that are larger and somewhat aggressive, e.g., groupers, angelfishes, hawkfishes, and moderately aggressive triggerfishes.

Requires a meaty diet, including fortified brine shrimp, mysis, black and other meaty type marine-based frozen and fresh foods, and should be fed twice daily.

Taxonomy:

Order: Perciformes

Suborder: Labroidei

Family: Labridae

Genus: Coris

FYI: Cute when small, however quickly grows too large for most home aquariums.

Upon first entering into the aquarium, may stay buried for days. Simply await its decision when to emerge. Once established, it will go to sleep under the sand and arise the next morning at almost the exact same time every day!

The aquarium should have small pieces of rocks for the wrasse to ‘play’ with in its daily search for prey.

Can greatly stir bottom sandbeds creating large clouds of sand being dispensed in many directions.

Smaller tankmates are at risk of being harassed by adult males.

Slow swimming tankmates cannot compete with this wrasse at feeding time.

One male per aquarium.

Hardy species.

Experience Level: Intermediate

Temperament: Semi-aggressive

Diet: Carnivore

Coral Safe: Yes

Fish Safe: With caution

Invertebrate Safe: With caution

Acclimation Time: 30 minutes+

Aquarium Environment: Fish-only aquarium

Tankmates: Larger, active and moderately aggressive

Minimum Tank Size: 150 gallons

Temperature Range: 72 - 82°F (22 – 27°C)

Specific Gravity: 1.020 - 1.026

pH: 8.0 - 8.5