Looking for a saltwater fish that’s colorful, easy to keep, reef safe, inexpensive, and suitable for a smaller tank? There’s a reason the six line wrasse, scientifically known as Pseudocheilinus hexataenia, is one of the most popular saltwater aquarium fish.
Keep reading for everything you need to know about six line wrasse care and how to keep this feisty little fish happy and healthy in your home aquarium!
| Name (Common, Scientific) | Six line wrasse, Pseudocheilinus hexataenia |
| Minimum tank size | 30 gallons |
| Minimum group size | 1 |
| Temperature | 72-78 °F |
| Salinity | 1.022-1.025 |
| pH | 8.1-8.4 |
| Difficulty level | Easy |
Six line wrasse description & natural habitat
Description
At a maximum length of around 4″, this is by no means the largest of the wrasses. But the six line wrasse more than makes up for its diminutive stature with its color! As its name suggest, its blue body features six horizontal orange stripes. The tail fin is green with an eye-spot, and the eyes have two stark white lines running through them.
As with many fish, it’s not possible to tell the difference between a male and female six line wrasse visually. In any case, they’re protogynous hermaphrodites: they all start out as females and change to male if the need arises (like if the dominant male in a group dies).
Natural habitat
Pseudocheilinus hexataenia is a reef dweller naturally found all the way from the Red Sea to the islands of the Central Pacific, such as Micronesia.
Six line wrasses prefer waters no deeper than 100ft. Being rather shy, they especially favor areas with dense coral that they can dart into at the first sign of any danger. Indeed, on dives by the FantaSEA Team in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, it was notably difficult to spot this timid fish!
Six line wrasse aquarium
Because six line wrasses don’t grow as large as many other wrasse species, you won’t need a large aquarium to keep them; around 30 gallons is a good place to start for a single six line, although bigger is usually better. The tank should have a lid to prevent jumping.
It’s important to help make your wrasse feel safe. Arranging live rock and corals in such a way that caves and crevices form allows the fish to quickly dart to safety if it feels threatened, just like it would in the wild, which helps prevent stress.
Did you know? One fascinating thing about six line wrasses is how they sleep. They wedge themselves into a crevice and then produce a sort of “cocoon” made of mucus, which is thought to mask their scent and protect them from predators. The cocoon is shed once they wake up. They’ll often eat it, but sometimes you can find it floating around the tank.
Six line wrasse compatibility
Six line wrasses are beautiful, hardy, and not too big. Unfortunately, there’s a factor that keeps them from being the perfect aquarium fish: compatibility issues. The (only) good news is that six line wrasses are considered mostly reef safe, at least in terms of corals.
The bad news is that they can be big bullies that might outcompete slower fish for food, and can occasionally end up killing their tankmates through sheer relentless harassment. Funny for a species that in all other aspects can be characterized as shy and timid!
Aggression towards other wrasse species is particularly intense, so it’s not a good idea to keep multiple varieties together unless you can offer lots of space. This includes other six lines; in the wild, they occur in small groups or harems, but in the confined space of our tanks it’s best to keep them alone to prevent serious territorial squabbles.
The way to go is to make sure your six line wrasse is the last species introduced into the aquarium. This way it won’t have an established territory to defend yet and not as much incentive to go on the attack. If it’s not the last species and you introduce another fish, the wrasse will often bother it for at least a few days, which causes a lot of stress.
Did you know? Invertebrates make up the majority of a six lined wrasse’s natural diet. Although some six lines coexist just fine with crabs and shrimp, others will hunt them relentlessly or might suddenly start doing so at a later age. Caution is advised. Sessile invertebrates like anemones and feather dusters seem to be left alone.
Six line wrasse diet
This species is mostly carnivorous and has a big appetite for small bugs like flatworms, bristleworms, and crustaceans (including copepods and amphipods, unfortunately). This is another reason six lines like plenty of live rock in the tank: these surfaces function as hunting grounds.
A healthy six line wrasse will spend much of its day browsing every inch of the tank, picking off any benthic invertebrates it can find. This is probably one of the reasons, aside from its looks, for the species’ popularity. Aquarists often buy it to get rid of annoying aquarium pests, but as we’ve seen, you need to make sure beforehand that the species is compatible with your tank.
Pyramidellid snails, an annoying parasitic pest, are considered a tasty snack. The same goes for flatworms, which often hitchhike into the aquarium and are innocent but pretty unsightly. According to research, even damaging Acropora coral flatworms aren’t safe. Your six line wrasse will make quick work of them!
Even with a good amount of live rock, do make sure you supplement the diet of your six lined wrasse. Frozen foods like mysis and brine shrimp are big favorites, but you can also offer regular flake and pellet foods.
Did you know? Researchers have found that juvenile six line wrasses in particular sometimes act as cleaner fish. They’re facultative cleaners, meaning that unlike species like the bluestreak wrasse, they don’t depend on cleaning duties for the majority of their diet.
Mutualistic cleaner fish maintains high escape performance despite privileged relationship with predators
Breeding the six line wrasse
Alas, not much luck here. Successful breeding reports for the six line wrasse do exist, but it’s by no means a common thing. Even dedicated fish farms haven’t managed to breed them on a commercial scale yet, which means most specimens at our local fish stores are wild-caught.
The problem isn’t just the species’ feisty nature, which makes it difficult to keep multiple fish together unless you have a very large tank. It’s also that the eggs are pelagic: they’re not laid on a rock or in a cave, but float through the water column. This makes a specialized set-up necessary. Not to mention the tiny size of the larvae!
Conclusion
Hardy fish like the six line wrasse are suitable choices for beginning aquarists, but maintaining a saltwater aquarium still requires specialist knowledge.
Don’t have time to become an aquarium guru? Let FantaSEA Aquariums handle the design, set-up and maintenance of your tank so all you have to do is enjoy it. Contact us today!
Sources & further reading
Barton, J. A., Humphrey, C., Bourne, D. G., & Hutson, K. S. (2020). Biological controls to manage Acropora-eating flatworms in coral aquaculture. Aquaculture Environment Interactions, 12, 61-66.
Gingins, S., Roche, D. G., & Bshary, R. (2017). Mutualistic cleaner fish maintains high escape performance despite privileged relationship with predators. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1853), 20162469.
