Leopard Wrasse Primer

[piusma]

Hard to tell. Did you quarantine your fish? It is always possible that you can introduce bad things to an established tank without a proper quarantine process. Did you check your overflows?

 

[iamwrasseman]

"mated pair" by definition is a pair that will breed from what i have always understood and also i googled it and they only talk about fish that breed in captivity . that being said i dont think its possible at all sorry to say .
as far as the ornate that burrowed under and dissapeared he could have jumped or something like that as you have already looked for that so he is probably in his safe area and that is under the gravel so let him be and see what happens .give it a few days and dont disturb the gravel in an attempt to have him come out as that will only add to its stress .

 

[iamwrasseman]

the eggcrate is pretty sharp on its face so be careful using as a divider as your fish can damage their bodies and particularly their mouths rubbing against it .

 

[Renton777]

I joined the club

I joined the club

Hello All,
First, I want to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread, I have found it very informative. Second, I wanted to announce I have joined the wrasse club for the first time (I have an ever growing affection for wrasses), more specifically the Macropharyngodon bipartitus club. On July 1st I got 3 of them from a LFS, www.saltycritter.com. They had received them 2 weeks prior and we had worked out an arrangement so that they would hold them in a tank with a nice sand bed (I made this arrangement based on info I had read in this thread. I wanted to give them some time between introductions to new systems to reduce overall stress).

Since introduction into the tank I have seen 2 of the 3 out and swimming, albeit at separate times. Both of the ones I have seen have been picking at the rocks as well as eating pe mysis, nutramar ova prawn roe, and cyclopezze.

I think I will treat the entire tank with Prazipro, as advised in this thread. I do have a question about Prazipro's effect on feather dusters and bristleworms. I have a very large population of bristle worms and I worry about a massive die off and polluting the water from their decay. Has anyone wittnessed the effect of Prazipro on bristleworms?

All 3 of my Blue Star Leopards are currently female and I promise to post pictures soon.

Thanks,
Nathan

 

[iamwrasseman]

hmmmmmmmm,bristleworms huh? i really dont know but i am pretty sure that they will be fine as i have dosed many times with prazi pro with each new addition and i still have bristleworms so thats the input i can give you . you may be able to get their email addresse and contact them directly for that information .
oh and i hope that you bipartius wrasses bring you much joy . just be careful as wrasses are so cool you may not want any other fish other than them ,lol .good luck !

 

[BeanMachine]

Here is the M meleagris Female over a year ago.

Here is a current pick of my SheMale... taken yesterday.

The Meleagris is looking cooler every day as its changing... Developing more orange and blues. I'll try to get my buddy to come over and snap a couple more picks. The change has been pretty gradual so my guestimate would be another month or so for a full change.

 

[Renton777]

The best picture I could manage of my new addition.

 

[Ralph ATL]

nice catch!

 

[thelostrican]

I added to my collection a small poters about 2 months ago...doing great in my dt...will add a vermiculate today, and a pair of Jordanis...

 

[Renton777]

Two finally meet

Two finally meet

It will be two weeks tomorrow since I introduced 3 blue star leopard wrasses to my tank.

Wrasse #1 emerged 2 days after introduction to the tank and is out every morning to great me and eat. Generally she is back in the sand by late afternoon.

Wrasse #2 has popped out a couple times in the evening but has only spent a short amount of time out before ducking back into the sand.

Wrasse #3 had not been seen since introduction to the take until this morning! I had just fed the fish some mysis. Wrasse #1 was feeding when all of a sudden #3 decided to leave the cozy sand bed to join her! The slowly circled each other to check things out. They then began to roam the tank together. Wrasse #1 is bigger then #3 and seemed to be letting her know she is in charge.

I snapped a couple pictures and shot a video. Now, my tank is a bit of a mess. I have some coral frags sitting on the sand bed and I have adopted some stress frags, a couple which did not make it. Otherwise enjoy the fish!

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-siwtmXu4e0

 

[thelostrican]

Omg!!!omg!!!!! My vermiculate died.....noooooo after qt and all...eating everything..I am sure it had to be cyanide..grrrrrr

All was good and I mean good...all of a sudden spiral of death..

The Jordanis in the other hand are on my dt in an acclimatation box....

 

[small alien]

Terrible!

 

[Renton777]

Question for you leopard wrasse veterans. Of the 3 bipartitus wrasses I recently got, 2 come out in the morning. The larger one emerged from the sand several days before the smaller one. The larger one almost continuously harasses the smaller one to the point that the smaller one does not get much food and dives back to the sand after a little while.

I hope to eventually get other species of leopard wrasses and this is where my question comes in. Have you seen two different species of leopard wrasses work out a hierarchy as they would between their own species? For instance, should I expect an established bipartitus to boss around a new geoffroyi when the geoffroyi is added to the tank?

 

[Tylt33]

Question for you leopard wrasse veterans. Of the 3 bipartitus wrasses I recently got, 2 come out in the morning. The larger one emerged from the sand several days before the smaller one. The larger one almost continuously harasses the smaller one to the point that the smaller one does not get much food and dives back to the sand after a little while.

I hope to eventually get other species of leopard wrasses and this is where my question comes in. Have you seen two different species of leopard wrasses work out a hierarchy as they would between their own species? For instance, should I expect an established bipartitus to boss around a new geoffroyi when the geoffroyi is added to the tank?

It's a gamble. I had a harem of one male bipartitus and three females. Had them for almost two years. A friend gave me an immature meleagris. The male bipartitus went nuts. He killed the meleagris, killed one of his females, and scared the heck out of the other two. I found him dead in the tank a few weeks later, he had what appeared to be a head wound from trying to jump out of the tank.

 

[Renton777]

It's a gamble. I had a harem of one male bipartitus and three females. Had them for almost two years. A friend gave me an immature meleagris. The male bipartitus went nuts. He killed the meleagris, killed one of his females, and scared the heck out of the other two. I found him dead in the tank a few weeks later, he had what appeared to be a head wound from trying to jump out of the tank.

Thanks for the response, and Holy Cow! If Quentin Tarantino made a movie about leopard wrasses I am pretty sure it would end with the scene you just described above.

 

[iamwrasseman]

i have also seen an male bipartus get ticked off with newbies of close species as your trying to do . i have had luck doing it but only in an overcrowded tank where the aggression is somewhat dispersed because now fish really owns a territory . in a different understocked tank my male ruled the tank and it has be very difficult to introduce any new wrasses except for a very large potters leopard and they seem to coexist very well . i had problems with trying to introduce a yellow tail tamarin wrasse and also a ruby head fairy wrasse in that same tank before i got the potters . they both had to be moved to a different tank within a couple of days .

 

[Bluespot22]

I posted a while back in this thread, I had a choati wrasse until he jumped onto the glass cover that covers my overflow. Needless to say I have fixed that problem for future wrasses or jumping fish. I had him for 5 months and he did really well and was one of my favorites.

Anyway, I am now have access to them again and am going to get a pair, possibly a trio, so I was wondering if anybody has info on sexing them? Or experience with pairs or groups? These fish will go in my 120 reef which has no pod eaters and I consistently feed 2-3 times a day. Plus I have access to a copepod culture at work so I feel I can support these fish long term.

Also, I do like to QT whenever possible and was wondering if anybody has experience QT'ing these guys? I am willing to take the risk of putting them in my DT but would prefer to get them eating and used to our time zone in QT before I add them to the display. If I did qt it would be in a 20 gallon with a sand bed and PVC tubes.

Thanks for any tips or advice in advance!

 

[iamwrasseman]

here's a link for you to read up on them . they are close except for the head color pattern as described .you have to click on sexual differences on the upper left side of the article.i have had a bunch of them and they are close to impossible to keep for a prolonged period of time IMO. it is however possible but i think its demise is partially due to minor alk swings as i have learned from other experiences so please keep that in mind as you should have a reefkeeper or similar device that will dose constantly to keep any swings from occurring . good luck to ya !
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/marine/wrasses/ChoatsWrasse.php#Sex: Sexual differences:

 

[Bluespot22]

Thanks for the link, I found it very helpful. So in theory if I did get smaller fish then the dominant one would become the male? Interesting on the alk swings. What led you to believe there is a correlation with alk swings to losing the fish? Also, when you (and others that may be reading) lost your wrasses what was the suspected cause? Starvation? Parasites? What was the longest you managed to keep yours? I plan on treating my display with prazipro as a preventative and will do whatever I can to keep these guys alive.

EDIT: Also found this link very helpful with sexing:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=211338222196

 

[iamwrasseman]

the alk swing theory was explained to me by someone who lost his two choate's the day after he used a good amount of Joe's juice . he had the wrasses for more than a year and then whacked some aptasia and the next day the both were dead so its the only thing that i have to base my or his theory on .as far as parasites i always used prazi pro to eradicate them and 99% of my choati's dies very fat and happy looking as they ate very well and kept weight on also . they never seemed to "wither" from lack of nutrition in any way .again 99%all of mine made it past a week and all did eat very well but looked great the night before i found them dead on the sand bed .i had many last for a few months and one pair did live for at least half a year ,one of them is pictured as my avatar .also jungle Jim makes a pelleted food that contains praziquantel and most of them did eat it also along with PE mysis shrimp with gusto .i did find that the choati along with many leopards simply cant handle the added stress of QT and quickly found that a temp acclimation only was best along with adding them directly to the display tank .i have had a couple of dozen of them and like i stated it wasn't difficult to acclimate them "my way" but they would just end up dead on the sand bed . no fast breathing or funny swimming associated with stress or drugs and poof they were just dead ,fat and happy looking .i was even feeding them up to six times a day the last few batches of them and they ate like mad but something else is missing . i have even tried lower tank temperature and they still didnt make it past a few months .also i even bought a half dozen mac certified in the bag from where i work in two different batches and they still acted quite the same as they seemed like they were fine but like i said theres something missing . they are a fish that IMO really should be left on the reef .there are to my knowledge a few success stories with them from a couple of others out there but i have not really checked out what they are doing different than i was . i can say that i have been very successful at keeping delicate wrasses and would like to try them again but am a bit adamant because of mine and others success vs.failure rates .