The King Julien of Wrasses
Macropharyngodon vivienae is rare enough that it has only one common name, including translations of other languages, “The Madagascar Wrasse”. The name is apt, as this wrasse has only been found in the sub-tropical and tropical waters around Madagascar and Mauritius, with a few localized collections off the coast of Kenya. This part of the world is hard to reach, difficult to work in and hard to ship from, a trio of complications which makes them very hard to come by, especially for North American hobbyists. They are generally reef associated, and they have been reported come from a variety of depths. Madagascar Wrasses are small fish, staying less than four inches long.
In the home aquarium, Madagascar wrasses are like most other Macropharyngodon genus fish in that they have a reputation for being difficult to keep. In our experience, this is mostly down to feeding. They have small stomachs and in the wild, they need to graze all day. They are also not the most aggressive feeders, so getting them enough food, consistently enough, is the primary barrier to success with the genus. In house, we feed them a thawed mix of marine based, meaty food, mulitple times a day. To help ensure the long term success of their eventual owners, we also mix in a high quality, protein dense, sinking pellet. It's much easier to get these fish enough protein once you can segue them on to a more processed food, which bite for bite, offers much more complete nutition than most thawed offerings. The sooner your Madagascar Wrasse (or any other Macropharyngodon tbh) learns to recognize pellets, the easier they will be to keep.
Other than feeding requirements, this wrasse has needs that most aquarists are familiar with. If you mix saltwater properly, and change it on schedule, your water parameters will be fine for Madagascar Wrasses. Ensure your filtration is adequate to prevent nutrient spikes. The only difference is that these fish can be kept in a cooler environment, think mid 70s instead of high 70s to low 80s. The extra oxygen seems to really help their stress and activity level. This is a pretty docile fish, so keeping it with other peaceful tankmates, especially those that aren't super aggressive eaters will help the Madagascar Wrasses be more bold and get more food.
In regards to tank size, a single individual or pair could be kept in a tank as small as 75g, though we suggest a larger aquarium. A lot of complex rockwork will give these fish plenty of places to hide, making your fish more bold. In depth rockscape also gives the live copepods in the display a place to hide and reproduce as well offering another source of nutrition for the wrasses. To this end, larger aquariums serve the same purpose. Another practice that seems helpful for any picky, small stomached, fish is utilizing refugia to supply a steady stream of live copepods to the tank, while adding the added benefit of temperature and pH stabilization. This fish needs a sandbed; it should be fairly fine and at least an inch deep, slightly more would be better. They will dive into this sandbed to hide and sleep. It reduces stress, and some hypothesize this behavior also helps the wrasses regenerate slime coat and gives the fish a “bath” remove unwanted bacteria. Regardless of the reason why, they do much better when they have some sand.
One of the coolest things about this genus of wrasses is that they utilize their pectoral fins (the ones on the side by the gills) for swimming around. This gives their activity a motion that is very smooth, and they almost appear to glide around in the water like a spacecraft zooming along with no gravity, which you see a lot because they are very active. They are also very unique appearance wise, being somewhat more elongated and pearlescent than many other Leopard Wrasses. If you have some experience, and have an aquarium that has been established for some time, the Madagascar Wrasse is an amazing showpiece specimen for any aquarium, especially those who don't have the footprint for much larger fish. If you're interested in keeping this fish, now's your opportunity. Have your LFS call Quality Marine right away and get one of these on their next order!