The Rose Among The Fishes

The genus of Wrasses known as Cirrhilabrus, or “Fairy” Wrasses has many fish in it, nearly all of which are gorgeous and size appropriate for the home aquarium. The grouping has several subgroups, and among them the Pintail or Lanceolotus fish are among the most beautiful and rarely seen. The Cirrhilabrus roseafascia is just such a fish; gorgeous, peaceful, reef safe and small enough to be appropriate for common sized aquariums. It is most often called the Pink Banded Fairy Wrasse, so named for the prominent pink band running all along its back. They are also commonly called the Rose Banded Fairy Wrasse.

Like all fairy wrasses it will undergo a substantial color transformation from the (still very attractive) mostly pink of the juveniles and females, to the absolutely stunning colors and patterns of the fully mature super male courting potential mates. These males will have a pointed tail and bright yellow dorsal and anal fins with light pink bodies and their name-sake dark pink stripe. They also have a deeply pointed tail fin with iridescent blue highlights all over the place. Its colors and shape can go ten toes in looks wise with any marine fish out there.

Cirrhilabrus roseafascia is a deepwater fish, commonly collected between 200 and 300 feet below the water's surface of their home range throughout the tropical Indo-Pacific and western Pacific Ocean. They are most often found in congregations of many fish, consisting of many smaller subgroupings called harems. These harems will consist of one dominant male fish and several females and juveniles. In the wild, they spend their days hovering in the current of these locations, eating anything that comes by, mostly suspended plankton.

These wild lifestyle makes some portions of their captive husbandry much easier, like feeding. A fish that is used to eating random things floating by is likely to continue this behavior. There are almost never issues getting Fairy Wrasses to eat high quality food that they actually see. The problem some aquarists will come across is that these fish come from very deep water, where lighting is dim. Being unused to broad daylight, Pink Bandeds are generally shy initially. This equates to them hiding quite a bit until acclimated, and if they don't see the food coming by, they can't eat it. You can get around this behavior by turning down the lights of your tank initially, and by giving them plenty of rockwork to hide in so they feel more secure in their new home. In house, we feed them a mix of foods from Gamma with Mysis being a favorite, but we also give them Finely Chopped Mussel, Finely Chopped Prawn, Copepods and all the assorted Brine Plus products Gamma makes. We also suggest getting the fish on a protein dense and broad-spectrum nutrient pellet like the Nutramar Complete. This will make getting them a balanced diet much easier and allow for the use of an auto feeder for at least one of their daily meals. We suggest you feed them three times a day (or more), as they have fast metabolisms and are very active once acclimated.

Now, as we've mentioned, Pink Banded Fairy Wrasses will like a good bit of rockwork, but they'll also like a good bit of open space to swim in. At under four inches long for the biggest of them, they don't necessarily need a huge aquarium, but something in the range of 75 gallons will be required to give them both hiding space and swimming space, obviously, bigger is not a problem. What is important here is that you cover the tank. Fairy Wrasses are an investment, especially when you choose to keep multiples, and they will dart quickly in one direction when startled; if the tank isn't covered when this happens, they end up on the ground. Flow should be nice and high, look for something around 20 times the total tank volume. Lighting should be subdued, especially initially. Cirrhilabrus roseafascia can adapt to full reef lighting over time, but you should acclimate them to this over the course of a couple weeks.

The water chemistry and quality stuff should all be pretty familiar to regular readers of our columns. Temperatures are the one possible departure from pretty standard reef aquarium parameters as they can be cooler than usual, anything in the range from the high 60s to the mid 70s is ideal, and no higher than 78 degrees. Specific gravity isn't especially important, as long as it is stable, 1.020 – 1.026 with a stable pH between 8.0 and 8.4. Nitrates should remain below 5ppm, so keep up the maintenance and regular water changes.

If you are ever lucky enough to see these fish in the wild (very few people ever dive this deep), you'll see them in groups, and sometimes mixed specie groups. These are both great display options. We've found them to be very peaceful, even with other species of Fairy Wrasse. We would suggest only keeping one super male in a tank as this will help any dominance struggles. If you're only going to keep Cirrhilabrus roseafascia, shoot for one male for every five or so females. Other good tankmates are fish that are peaceful, and ideally slow swimmers that won't scare your fish into hiding; think fishlike Cardinals, Dragonettes, Firefish, Gobies, Dartfish, Ocellaris Clowns and other fish of this nature. Avoid very aggressive and or predatory fishlike Eels, Lionfish etc. Pink Banded Fairy Wrasses are about as reef safe as any fish can get. They're extremely unlikely to bother any inverts bigger than Mysis Shrimp. All your Corals, Clams, Anemones, Sea Fans and cleanup crew should all be safe.

If you're the kind of aquarist always looking for a lesser known, rarer, cooler fish, Cirrhilabrus roseafascia has got to be on your list, especially if your tank is a peaceful place. They're everything you want in an aquarium fish, gorgeous, small, peaceful, hardy. Big enough to the feature, small enough to be an element of a larger display. Regardless of the role you see them playing in your tank, they're going to stop people in their tracks when they pass it. Want one? Want six? Head to your Local Fish Store and ask them about getting you a bunch of Pink Banded Fairy Wrasses from Quality Marine today!