Wrasses and Eggcrate

[greenmonkey51]

I'm looking to get a trio of wrasses, particularly some carpenters or filamented flasher wrasse. Would eggcrate be enough to keep them in. Also are they good starter wrasse.

[zemuron114]

nope. you need fine mesh top. Eggcrate has proven many many times on this board to not work at all. There is always some little fish that makes it through (or a couple) i would say no bigger then 1/4" wide squares would be good. isnt eggcrate 1/2"-1" squares?

[Fairy Wrassler]

Eggcrate is typically 1cm squares. I still hate it, and only trust glass lids for my fish.

I lost my Scott's fairy through a gap in between the lid and the tank glass that was much smaller than the fish was wide.

Glass lids are my first choice, mesh second.

P. carpenterii and and P. filamentosis could fit through eggcrate and they WILL jump at some stage.

Having said that, they are great fish.


All the best,
FW

[JStorey]

I have glass tops, I fitted the teeth of my overflow with plastic gutter guard because I lost a couple of McCoskers that got in there and didn't know until they died and I found them. I also covered the top of my overflows with the plastic gutterguard. Even with all that my exquisite wrasse managed to get past the gutterguard that extends over the top of the overflow and touches the glass tops where there was a small gap by my returns. Unfortunately he landed on top of the gutterguard and died. I covered that spot best I could to prevent the others from getting in the overflow but am removing the covers so if they do get through I can at least fish them out alive. All that being said they are truly the houdini of marine fish and if there is the slightest opening they seem to find them.

[kypatriot]

I have a carpenter's in a QT right now, and yesterday I heard a "thunk". When I looked over at it, the fish had cleared just jumped and been stopped by the glass.

One of my tanks has eggcrate in the summer, and while the holes are not too large, I would be concerned about the eggcrate being too light and getting knocked out of the way by a fish-missile.

[bradleyj]

This type of mesh top is working real good for me, I had to double the netting to keep the little ones in. But now they just bounce back into the water.lol

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/tileman/100_3248.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/tileman/100_3252.jpg

[kypatriot]

Where did you get that? Is that like the stuff people put over strawberries to keep birds out?

[greenmonkey51]

I've used eggcrate a lot and I didn't think it could keep smaller fish in. I went to the hardware store and grabbed a couple pieces of Plexiglass. I have to custom fit it around a couple things but it should keep any jumpers in.

[bradleyj]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10619302#post10619302 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kypatriot
Where did you get that? Is that like the stuff people put over strawberries to keep birds out?

All of the material can be found at Lowes or Home Depot.
You just build a window screen frame the size of the top of your tank and use the garden netting for your screen.

[Jim_S]

I've lost 4 wrasses in the last 6 months. After 1, I added the eggcrate. Lost 3 more since.... :(

[kypatriot]

Is there a good way to get filter returns & such through the netting? (just have to feed them through)?

[bradleyj]

All of my stuff is below the top of my tank, so it was very easy to build, but I'm sure you could figure something out.
Here are a few more pics so you can get a better idea of what it looks like.
I took it off the tank to give you a better look.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/tileman/100_4663.jpg


These are the corners you get to attach the framing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/tileman/100_4666.jpg

This shows it over my overflow and durso.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/tileman/100_4669.jpg

[tmz]

I saw a Scots spook as I walked by and gillnet himself in the egg crate .