I have noticed that whenever I ship in new specimens of leopard wrasses there is an extremely high mortality rate. I have six healthy established specimens in my system. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with possibly pretreating these fish for internal parasites or any tricks to ensure a higher survival rate. It seems to only happen to the Leopards. I also have the fish shipped with some sand to ease there stress level. Sometimes they will swim in my tank for a day or two and then lay over on there side and die! This has been consistent with the black,ornate,half divided and standard leopard wrasse although I have estbalished specimens from each in my tank!
Leopard wrasse help needed!
- Thread starter Energy
- Start date
That is very typicall 
Unfortuneatly I believe the damage to the fish that causes it die so shortly after it's recieved has been done long before you got it. IMO they suffer from Morgan Lidster calls Post Traumatic Stess Syndrome from shipping and holding at the various points along the chain of custody from diver to consumer.
Unfortuneatly I believe the damage to the fish that causes it die so shortly after it's recieved has been done long before you got it. IMO they suffer from Morgan Lidster calls Post Traumatic Stess Syndrome from shipping and holding at the various points along the chain of custody from diver to consumer.
So with your experience you've seen the same thing and it's not just my system? I just bought four potters from a diver in Hawaii who had them in his system for a week. He said they were eating and looked good. When I got them Three out of the four died within days. I trust the source I got them from so I wonder if it could be from shipping stress alone. I can confirm two died by the next day or sooner. I wonder if there is anyway way to anesthetize (sp?) the fish for the trip?
Potter's Wrasses are infamous for not doing well. In the case of something like that direct from the diver, some prophalytic deworming might indeed be in order immediatly after collection. Tranquillizer's have indeed been used for shipping fish, generally Finquel (aka MS-222). However, it needs to be very precisely measured and dosed. Something that often gives shippers troubles in thier rush to get stuff packed and to the airport.
