I agree. Most likely she’s already been disposed of by your clean up crew. All leopards are tough. I really don’t know what makes some do great from the get go and some just bury themselves never to be seen again. I’ve had some that have have came in looking amazing that go into the tank and disappear while I’ve also had some that came in looking severely stressed that went on to do great. Just seems to be the luck of the draw. I do find that worming them with panacur helps their longterm survival but that doesn’t help when they bury immediately and disappear.
They really need to be placed in an “acclimation tank” alone, for a month or so. This tank will have a tray of sand, a live rock or two, a dim light on a timer, and lots of pods. This serves the dual role of effectively QTing them, while also limiting major stressors, like other boisterous fish, very bright light (when they need to adjust to a 12 hour time difference, food competition, untreated parasitic worms, and so forth. It’s really no mystery why some bury themselves and never come out. They are terrified and weak from collection and processing, and the environment they are too often plunged into (a bright, crowded (by ocean standards) DT) exacerbates that. The acclimation tank also lets you offer them frozen food to pick at at their leisure which they can then learn to eat. You should also carefully follow humblefishes protocol and dose them with Prazi while in the acclimation tank (no harm in doing this with sand/rock, just watch your 02 levels, I learned that the hard way with a tang once). By the time you introduce them to DT they are fat, dewormed, acclimated to your countries time, usually willing to eat frozen, and generally less stressed and fearful of the captive environment.
So I’ve said all the above many times, but I’ll say it again. It’s not a mystery why so many of these die when dumped in a DT. It’s also not a mystery why most live when following the above steps. Hell, I have a tiny sample size, but I’m 5 for 5 with this method, and that’s with all fish shipped from CA to PA. I’d guess with this method, given a reasonably healthy wrasse, you’d go from maybe a 35% survival rate to better than 90%, but people keep on doing what they do...
If you can’t follow these steps, you should get a friend or an LFS that can and really will, otherwise, it’s honestly a fairly irresponsible purchase tbh (unless they are first fish in, but still easier to do all of the above in a smaller tank).
B
