Leopard Wrasse Primer

Leopard Wrasse Primer

  • Macropharyngodon bipartitus

    Votes: 67 28.4%
  • Macropharyngodon choati

    Votes: 12 5.1%
  • Macropharyngodon geoffroy

    Votes: 24 10.2%
  • Macropharyngodon meleagris

    Votes: 78 33.1%
  • Macropharyngodon negrosensis

    Votes: 29 12.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 26 11.0%

  • Total voters
    236
Moses, sorry to hear that man. Best of luck with the female.

Thanks!


Leopards have a 75%+ death rate in captivity in the first few weeks. If it had really been in the store and been eating and been fine... then who knows. If it had just arrived it may never have been eating and may have had issues. I bought one from the same store and it had what looked like swimming issues and didn't make it. These fish are a roll of the dice at best.

Yeah... Mine looked perfectly fine for 2 days before it started to do the "death dance". :(


yes the dice is sometimes not on our side but lets hope he pulls through and becomes a great tankmate for the others

Yeah, hopefully it pulls through. I think it dived into the sand... I cant seem to find it anywhere.



Also, I know this doesn't have to do anything with Leopard Wrasses, but I was just looking at the tank and saw the Yellowtail Tamarin Wrasse (Anampses meleagrides) picking at a live hermit crabs shell while the hermit was chilling an a coral. Looked really funny. LOL :lolspin:
 
oh yes the yellow tain tamarin is a beautiful fish ! i have a real small one and he is doing great .
the wrasse getting into the sandbed is a good thing as its his safe haven and he can stay there stress free for a while . hope he pulls through and give him some time /space .
 
awwww sorry to hear ,and the female is doing well still ? "time to go shopping " is what my wife always says . just sucks though ~

I'm not sure how the female is doing, looked like it was doing fine yesterday, but it hasn't come out of the sand today yet. Well, the good thing is that the Yellowtail Tamarin Wrasse is doing good so far. Still doesn't accept frozen foods.
 
can you get any live brine shrimp ? its simply the best food to get them started on IMO . i have a 99% eating rate with that stuff with new fish .if not watch the tank for a while after feeding as they will get to picking a few minutes to a half hour after the food is introduced so sometimes you dont see them eat . cyclopeez is also pretty good for the smaller mouthed fish to get started on .
 
can you get any live brine shrimp ? its simply the best food to get them started on IMO . i have a 99% eating rate with that stuff with new fish .if not watch the tank for a while after feeding as they will get to picking a few minutes to a half hour after the food is introduced so sometimes you dont see them eat . cyclopeez is also pretty good for the smaller mouthed fish to get started on .

Oh, I'm feeding the tank daily with live baby brine shrimp. But, I don't think I see it eating them. I can't really tell because he is so small and fast. lol Usually, I see the baby brine shrimp/eggs get stuck on the rocks and he would pick at the rocks where baby brine shrimp/eggs got stuck on, so, I guess he is eating them. I've literally got 30 glass vials of baby brine shrimp eggs. LOL
 
Here is a recent picture of my M. Meleagris, she's been with me a little over a year now. She's in a 60g sps tank and eats everything I throw in the tank.

IMG_1173.jpg



Edit:

this is my first attempt at a leopard and it's been good, I bought her directly from a fish wholesaler and made sure she ate before buying. She was QT'd for 2 months and treated with prazipro and cupramine.
 
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Well, my female Leopard didn't come out today for some reason. Hope she's alright. :( If this female also dies, I'm going to try a different source.
 
okay that's great that you have the brine as they really do go after it much better than frozen or anything else . hopefully they are eating it but i hear you on the difficulty of seeing them . you usually can see when they eat one as they kind of pick it out of the water ya know ?
also if you can give them some space then they will react more aggressively when feeding so sit back and keep movement down until they get accustomed to aquarium life which is very stressful at the least . its like us living in a closet after 20 years of being free to roam the world .
 
i have found that the M. meleagris is extremely varying as to "batches" living or not . you can get four or five with none living then get a few that do . IMO its how they were caught ,warehoused and shipped that determine their chanced of survival not what you do with them for the most part .
also IMO except for the choati leopard the M.meleagris is one of the most difficult for the first month ,after that your golden ! they just dont deal with the stresses associated with getting them from the ocean to your aquarium IMO .
 
okay that's great that you have the brine as they really do go after it much better than frozen or anything else . hopefully they are eating it but i hear you on the difficulty of seeing them . you usually can see when they eat one as they kind of pick it out of the water ya know ?
also if you can give them some space then they will react more aggressively when feeding so sit back and keep movement down until they get accustomed to aquarium life which is very stressful at the least . its like us living in a closet after 20 years of being free to roam the world .

Yeah, I can tell if a fish is eating in the water column, but I just can't really tell on the Yellowtail Tamarin Wrasse as hes really small and fast. lol Also, he has a small belly, so, I can tell that hes getting some kind of food, just not sure what. His belly is "normal" I guess, not too fat, not too thin.
Yeah, I give him some space, I sit on a chair a few feet away from the tank when I feed.



i have found that the M. meleagris is extremely varying as to "batches" living or not . you can get four or five with none living then get a few that do . IMO its how they were caught ,warehoused and shipped that determine their chanced of survival not what you do with them for the most part .
also IMO except for the choati leopard the M.meleagris is one of the most difficult for the first month ,after that your golden ! they just dont deal with the stresses associated with getting them from the ocean to your aquarium IMO .
Oh, okay. Yeah, I got the male and female from the same store. So, if both die, I'll know it was the wholesalers/collectors so I'll try a different LFS that gets fish from different wholesalers/collectors and see what happens.
 
its funny but not really as they run in spurts as to their survival rate . i have been having great results in the past few years but it took quite a while to figure out to get them settled down and eating . this site is awesome as there is so much shared information here .collectively there is so much knowledge here and much of it learned from failures at the fishes expense . i really think that much is learned from failure if you really keep your eye and mind open . success is much more rewarding though as we all know
these tiny little closed systems that we try to provide such delicate species make it such a challenge . every time i expand my total system size [gallons] i have better stability and thus better results . can't wait till i get my 250 up and running then i will have all my community wrasses together and that will be a sight to be proud of . just going slow with this one as there are a few more key pieces that i need ,then its go time !
 
its funny but not really as they run in spurts as to their survival rate . i have been having great results in the past few years but it took quite a while to figure out to get them settled down and eating . this site is awesome as there is so much shared information here .collectively there is so much knowledge here and much of it learned from failures at the fishes expense . i really think that much is learned from failure if you really keep your eye and mind open . success is much more rewarding though as we all know
these tiny little closed systems that we try to provide such delicate species make it such a challenge . every time i expand my total system size [gallons] i have better stability and thus better results . can't wait till i get my 250 up and running then i will have all my community wrasses together and that will be a sight to be proud of . just going slow with this one as there are a few more key pieces that i need ,then its go time !
Yeah, all true. Nice! When do you think you'll have your 250 gallon set up?
 
well that's a great question !
#1 carpet my wife's living room
#2 build and finish her stand and canopy for her 54 corner tank then install
#3paint my wife's living room
#4 build my stand and canopy and install my 250
gonna be a minute or two as i do have almost everything for the tank just need some "Dave time" to get er done !
realistically ? a month or two .......forgot Christmas ,hmmm yeah a month or two !
 
well that's a great question !
#1 carpet my wife's living room
#2 build and finish her stand and canopy for her 54 corner tank then install
#3paint my wife's living room
#4 build my stand and canopy and install my 250
gonna be a minute or two as i do have almost everything for the tank just need some "Dave time" to get er done !
realistically ? a month or two .......forgot Christmas ,hmmm yeah a month or two !

lol Nice. I'm planning on setting up a larger tank as well, 150+ gallon. :D
 
very nice ! i have a 5'x3'x2'high so it will be cool looking 3' into it . should be pretty awesome as the large front to back space will lead to some pretty awesome 3d look . going to build about 5 tall pillars of rock and keep them skinny so there is lots of swimming space but also plenty of room for my 20ish hammers and torches to hang off the rocks . also have some pretty big plate corals for the floor .
 
very nice ! i have a 5'x3'x2'high so it will be cool looking 3' into it . should be pretty awesome as the large front to back space will lead to some pretty awesome 3d look . going to build about 5 tall pillars of rock and keep them skinny so there is lots of swimming space but also plenty of room for my 20ish hammers and torches to hang off the rocks . also have some pretty big plate corals for the floor .

Nice!! Also, 60"longx36"widex24"high is a 224 gallon tank, not 250. :p I can't wait until you set up your tank! I was thinking about either going 72"longx30"widex24"high which is also a 224 gallon lol or a 60"longx30"widex24"high which is a 187 gallon. I'd go with a 36"wide tank, but, it will be a little too wide, 30"wide is already pushing it. lol
 
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