Red Eye Fairy Wrasse

Overview

The Red Eye Fairy Wrasse is a vividly coloured fairy wrasse with a deep red-to-orange body and fine blue highlights, males displaying particularly intense colouration during courtship or territorial displays. It's a larger and more robust fairy wrasse than many other Cirrhilabrus species, offering a striking centrepiece for a reef tank with a bit more swimming room.

It shares the general hardiness and peaceful temperament typical of fairy wrasses, generally settling well into a reef tank and adding constant colour and movement to the middle and upper water column.

As with most fairy wrasses, males intensify their colouration during courtship or territorial disputes, giving keepers an extra dimension of behaviour to observe alongside its already vivid resting colouration.

Compatibility

Red Eye Fairy Wrasses are peaceful and fully reef safe, ignoring corals and invertebrates. They can be kept singly or, in a large enough tank, as one male with several females, though two males in a smaller system may show aggressive displays toward each other.

They mix well with other peaceful to semi-aggressive community fish and are rarely bullied given their alert, quick-swimming nature.

Health & quarantine

This species is generally hardy once acclimated, though like most wrasses it's a capable jumper, so a secure, gap-free lid is essential. A minimum four-week quarantine is recommended, and this species typically settles in and feeds well without major complications.