Blue Star Leopard Wrasse...feedback

[67chevellemalibu2]

I am looking to get one, too.
Everyone is telling me the males are poor shippers, not the females.
You can trust Liveaquaria. They have a great guarantee and right now are running a 20% off special if you spend $100 or more and free shipping. You can’t beat that.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I am looking to get one, too.
Everyone is telling me the males are poor shippers, not the females.
You can trust Liveaquaria. They have a great guarantee and right now are running a 20% off special if you spend $100 or more and free shipping. You can’t beat that.

I like the sound of that deal for sure!

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Ideally you place them immediately into an established tank with a healthy pod population. However, if you want to QT that is not going to work. The best, if you want to QT, would be to find one eating prepared foods at the LFS and then you know it will have better chance of surviving QT.

But it's not impossible to QT one you just order, bc I've done it with 3 different leopards. When I first get them I take rock and chaeto from my main tank sump and put it into the QT to help provide pods for at least the first few days. During that time I also obsessively try to get them to eat prepared or live foods and do water changes to keep up with the waste that creates. I will keep adding new rock and chaeto loaded with pods until I get them to eat prepared foods. I keep every type of food on hand I can think of to try. In addition to frozen foods, I've had the best luck with masstick, it seems to attract them. I may have just been lucky, but I have not had one starve. In fact, all that have shipped well are with me today. I did not treat with meds but observed for 90 + days.

You don't need sand in you whole QT tank, you can just add a tray of it. I don't recall sand affecting the meds, but others could be more definitive on that.

So I added pods a month ago (2 jars of the algea barn 5280) ago and have been feeding phyto. I haven't seen any in the DT tank. I didn't see on live aqaria that these fish were into pods. Perhaps I should wait until I get a good population going? I was building a pod population for pod grazers, nothing like being proactive!

 

[4FordFamily]

Yellow coris are a relatively docile halichoeres and can often be kept with leopard wrasse without incident.

 

[Jesterrace]

Nice fish! Like the fox face too! I'm in no rush and can wait it out. Heck, I let my tank cycle for 2 months before I even made a move putting anything in it. I seen Live Aquaria had them but I have never ordered online before and if they don't do well shipping then I will play the waiting game and let the fls take the risk.

I like liveaquaria for research and rarities but ordering a delicate shipper from them just seems like an awful lot of expense and risk. Keep in mind you have to spend $100 to get free shipping or the cost of said fish doubles. I just feel that the Leopard Wrasse is one that is really best dealt with through the LFS since it puts the all the risk on them instead of you. To each their own though.

 

[Softhammer]

I’m going to have to disagree vehemently with liveaquaria. Unless it’s divers den all fish are dropped shipped from an LA distributor, where almost every fish in the country comes from. I think my last 10 fish came out of Long Beach and every single one died along with wiping out my Anthias harem that was a few years old and also taking out my 7 year old lawnmower blenny. There is a reason for all these super sales, they are pushing the same junk sent in hypo saline water as everyone else. Also keep in mind LiveAquaria/ Drs. Foster Smith is owned by Petco now. Same fish as you get in any petco store.

 

[67chevellemalibu2]

I’m going to have to disagree vehemently with liveaquaria. Unless it’s divers den all fish are dropped shipped from an LA distributor, where almost every fish in the country comes from. I think my last 10 fish came out of Long Beach and every single one died along with wiping out my Anthias harem that was a few years old and also taking out my 7 year old lawnmower blenny. There is a reason for all these super sales, they are pushing the same junk sent in hypo saline water as everyone else. Also keep in mind LiveAquaria/ Drs. Foster Smith is owned by Petco now. Same fish as you get in any petco store.

I was just saying. There’s people on here that say they have awesome Petco’s in there area. I’ve seen diseases present in two of my LFS . It’s everywhere. No one is exempt.

 

[Softhammer]

I’m absolutely not bashing petco. I still have some long-standing fish from them and the benefit is you can actually see them. I’m just saying the quality from DFS that we relied on is no more.

 

[Rukk]

I will share my experience, but please take it at that and not advice.

Bought 2 blue star gals from LA (first order from them ever) along with a coral beauty. They were packed well, the two wrasses were struggling, one was gasping at the top of the water in the bag. Carefully acclimated them and into QT they went (a little ten gallon that is up full time). Put a Tupperware container in the qt with some new sand in it. After a few days, starting treating them prazi, metro, kana, focus, and after that cuprion. A total period of 3 1/2 weeks. The wrasses started eating about a 1 1/2 week or so in, prepared foods. Placed in display and they are doing fine. My DT sand bed averages about 1 1/2" but has a few areas that go maybe 3 ish. I am watching them as I type this.

My pods have disappeared from my glass after the wrasses went in. But, I culture pods and phyto just for the heck of it so I just keep adding them to the tank. The wrasses eat all prepared foods and peck at the rocks and the gravel.

The coral beauty was in the same tank undergoing the same treatments. However, never saw it eat, though it didn't get skinny, was shy and definitely acted like it may have something wrong with its mouth and or gills. It died in qt after the fourth week to the day....

This tank will be 4 months old in a few days.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I will share my experience, but please take it at that and not advice.

Bought 2 blue star gals from LA (first order from them ever) along with a coral beauty. They were packed well, the two wrasses were struggling, one was gasping at the top of the water in the bag. Carefully acclimated them and into QT they went (a little ten gallon that is up full time). Put a Tupperware container in the qt with some new sand in it. After a few days, starting treating them prazi, metro, kana, focus, and after that cuprion. A total period of 3 1/2 weeks. The wrasses started eating about a 1 1/2 week or so in, prepared foods. Placed in display and they are doing fine. My DT sand bed averages about 1 1/2" but has a few areas that go maybe 3 ish. I am watching them as I type this.

My pods have disappeared from my glass after the wrasses went in. But, I culture pods and phyto just for the heck of it so I just keep adding them to the tank. The wrasses eat all prepared foods and peck at the rocks and the gravel.

The coral beauty was in the same tank undergoing the same treatments. However, never saw it eat, though it didn't get skinny, was shy and definitely acted like it may have something wrong with its mouth and or gills. It died in qt after the fourth week to the day....

This tank will be 4 months old in a few days.

Thanks for sharing! They look great!

 

[KMKoolreefs]

My experience with the blue stars is great. I currently have two in a 90 gallon reef with an older six line wrasse and two tangs. They eat everything I throw in there including piscine pellets and mega-marine algae (frozen hikari) food. I was lucky to get them from two different lfs that had them in perfect condition.

If you can’t find one at a reliable lfs, I think the key to acclimating one is to quarantine it in a small, uncompetitive tank where you can ‘target feed’ it with ease and allow it to become accustomed to you.

These fish are pretty intelligent and will learn to take almost any food once they recognize its safe and that food comes from YOU.

Hope this helps

 

[Jesterrace]

My Blue Star Leopard is actually my most people friendly fish. While the others can hide if the foxface gets spooked (quite frequently), the Leopard just hangs around. I have even had him hang out a few inches from my hand while I was scrubbing my rocks with a toothbrush just being curious.

 

[Kyl]

I bought two blue stars that were barley over an inch. One died in QT for no apparent reason, the survivor is in my DT, almost a year later and went through extensive QT including two copper cycles and another 3-4 months worth of combined observation. It is a tank, eats like a pig, and is out 100% during the day and following a rather strict bury / sleep cycle. At around 9:30pm - 9:40pm every night it will bury, and it's out about 5 minutes after the lights turn on at 10:00am. Food wise it eats: PE mysis, hikari mysis, PE pellets (1-2mm), another brand of pellets whos name escapes me, PE calanus, spirulina brine shrimp and LRS reef frenzy. It basically eats everything.

A pyrex bowl with fiji pink sand is what mine slept in for about half a year both during and after copper.