Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse LGE

The Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse has a blue body with red to orange running along the dorsal edge and a bright red face. The colours vary from blues and purples depending on the fish’s mood and it’s surroundings. The male's colours intensify when they are displaying to attract and court females.

These Wrasses are easy going and so make good additions to reef tanks. They are also well suited to fish only aquarium setups.

Tank Recommendations for Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse

The Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse an aquarium of at least 341 litres (90 gallons). They also need some areas that are shaded and so if you have live rock in your aquarium where you can make caves for them this will be ideal. Live Rock provides not just places for these fish to hide, but also many small life forms that the Wrasses will see as tasty treats to snack on.

They also do like to have a sand substrate where they can bury themselves if they feel threatened and sleep. A sand depth of 5cm is enough for them to do this. If you don’t have substrate in your aquarium an option is to add a container with sand so that the Wrasse can bury itself there.

These wrasses will not bother corals or invertebrates so they are a great fish for reef aquariums.

These wrasses like most wrasses are known to be jumpers, so we recommend a tight fitting aquarium lid.

Suitable Tank Buddies

The Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse is generally peaceful but may display aggression towards members of the same species.

Usually Compatible

Good tank mates for these easy-going fish are large Angelfish, Boxfish, Damsels and Tangs that won’t hassle the Wrasse.

Sometime Compatible

In large enough tanks with enough hiding places then these wrasses will be able to live with most other fish, but you should watch them especially with other similar looking wrasses as if they misidentify them as other Ruby Head Fairy Wrasses then they may fight with them.

Rarely Compatible

You shouldn’t keep these Wrasses with Sharks or Rays as they’re likely to eat them. Seahorses and Pipefish won’t do well with these wrasses either as the wrasses will be too fast swimming to keep with them.

Feeding Your Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse

The Ruby Head Fairy Wrasse in the wild has a carnivorous diet. In the aquarium, they will eat live foods like mysis, brine shrimp and copepods.

They will also accept frozen mysis and brine shrimps and other meaty foods along with a marine flake and marine pellet food. Remember to soak pellet foods before feeding them to ensure there is no air trapped inside them that can get stuck in the fishes digestive tract.

As with most wrasses it’s best to feed these fish a few small meals a day instead of one large meal.