The Laboute's Fairy Wrasse, Cirrhilabrus laboutei is native to the coral reefs of the Barier Reef to the coral reefs of New Caledonia and as far east as Vanuatu. The Cirrhilabrus laboutei has long been a favorite of aquarists, boasting an unreal mix of colors and patterns that few fish can come close to. Mature males are colored purple dorsally, with a contrasting white belly. Along the sides are a series of stripes in teal, yellow and a much darker shade of purple. These form a sort of looped line above the pectoral fin. Both males and females have these stripes but the colors of the males are much more intense. Relatively easy to adapt in captivity the Labouti Fairy Wrasse will be shy upon introduction to your home aquarium but become more bold as time goes on and will then spend hours and hours moving about in the water column. If continually harassed they will hide and refuse to eat. If you will be keeping more than one Laboutei in your tank add all the females and other fairy wrasses first because doing it any other way the male Labouti Fairy Wrasse may behave aggressively to the new introductions.
Super Male Labouti Wrasse
Tank Recommendations: The maximum adult size in the wild is around 6 inches, maxium aqurium size will be slightly smaller. We recommend keeping in a tank of at least 70 gallons in size, of course with aquariuum health the bigger the better is always the case. A 2-3 inch sand bed so they can bury themselves in the sand to sleep or hide. Live Rock should be provided for all Fairy and Filament Wrasses. The Live Rock provides numerous small life forms that the Wrasses consider a tasty treat as well as another place to hide when they feel threatened. Note: Wrasses are known to jump from aquariums. Be sure to have some sort of covering with no large open holes that they can escape from.
Food and diet:Best to feed several smaller meals a day rather than one large meal. Best practice is to use a refugium as part of the system’s filtration. This will provide a constant food supply of small live foods (e.g. copepods). Easily adjusts to captive diet. Feed a varied diet consisting of finely chopped chunks of meaty foods. These foods include krill, raw table shrimp, squid, clam and mussel. It is also a good idea to occasionally supplement with some type of herbivore diet. For frozen aquarium foods we suggest vitamin enriched frozen mysis shrimp, vitamin enriched frozen brine shrimp, and other meaty foods along with a high quality marine flake and marine pellet food.
Reef Compatability: Excellent