Carpenter's flasher wrasse

Paracheilinus carpenteri

Also known as Carpenter flasher wrasse, Redfin flasher wrasse, Carpenter's wrasse

SaltwaterFish

Carpenter's flasher wrasse (Paracheilinus carpenteri) — Gdiggers · CC BY-SA 3.0

Care at a glance

Temperature: 73–81°F (23–27°C)
pH: 8.1–8.4
Adult size: 3.1 in (8 cm)
Minimum tank: 53 gal (200 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Middle
Difficulty: Easy
Breeding: Hard
Rarity: Common
Reef safe: Reef safe
Origin: Western Pacific reefs around the Philippines, Indonesia, and nearby waters
Family: Labridae

Overview

Carpenter's flasher is a genuinely peaceful, colorful reef wrasse and one of the easier flasher wrasses to keep. It is fully reef safe and ignores corals, though a very hungry one may take the odd tiny invertebrate. It is best kept in a group, typically one male with several females introduced first, which draws out the male's flashing displays; a lone male often stays comparatively drab. It is peaceful toward tankmates and even toward its own kind when there is only one male, so it suits a mixed peaceful community. It swims actively in the middle water column. Hold stable marine water at a pH of 8.1 to 8.4 and 23 to 27 C with a tightly covered top. Feed small meaty foods like mysis and enriched brine two or three times a day, plus marine flake and pellet, since these active feeders eat frequently.

In the wild

Carpenter's flasher wrasses live on western Pacific reefs around the Philippines and Indonesia, gathering over rubble and reef slopes in groups where a dominant male flashes his fins and colors at the surrounding females, especially near dusk. They are active midwater fish that hover and dart above the rock feeding on drifting zooplankton. Give them a reef tank with live rock for shelter and plenty of open water to swim in, at a pH of 8.1 to 8.4 and a temperature of 23 to 27 C. A tight lid is essential, since flasher wrasses jump readily.

Good to know

This is a flasher wrasse in the family Labridae, reaching about 8 cm, the males marked with red, orange, and blue and extended dorsal fin rays that they raise during their flashing display. Like other wrasses it is a protogynous hermaphrodite, so females can change into males, and the display male is far more colorful than the females and subadults. It is only very rarely bred in captivity, so trade fish are wild-caught.

Did you know

The flasher name comes from the courtship display: the male suddenly intensifies his color and snaps his fins open to signal to the females, most dramatically in the last light of the day. Keeping several females alongside one male is what keeps him flashing, so a proper group is far more colorful than a single fish.