12 weeks of quarantine and the Leopard Wrasse is finally acclimating to the big tank. I started the process with 2 leopards but sadly lost one during the quarantine process. I purposely went very slowly with the quarantine process.
Empty acclination box in tank:
Tank mates checking out their new tank mate:
Leopard Quarantine Process:
1. Purchased 2 leopards from LFS on 3/18/2019 after ensuring they were healthy for 1 week at the store. Their diet was live brine at the store.
2. Pre-dosed the QT to 1ppm copper (CopperSafe). I purposely did yhis to help suppress any external parasites during the expected, lengthy conversion from live to frozen foods.
3. Devoted the first 3 weeks to observation and converting to frozen foods. Initially fed live brine shrimp and then slowly mixed in frozen brine with the live brine. This worked very well. Once solely on frozen brine, i would repeat this process with other types of frozen foods always including some of the previous food they were already used to eating. Finally, I converted them to frozen mysis which I was surprised they could fit in their tiny mouths...but, this wasn't actually introduced until the last few weeks of quarantine.
The "dead leopard" was never really accepting of much food ever, but she did convert to frozen...just barely ever ate anything! Im pretty sure she eventually died due to an internal parasite/worm, but couldn't get her to ever eat enough to medicate!
4. Attempted to feed medicated frozen foods (General Cure + Focus) but stopped after a day due to odd swimming behavior from my "healthy leopard" immediately after feeding. My concern was that maybe she couldn't handle the 1ppm copper plus new medicated food. Feeding with unmedicated foods did not illicit this odd swimming behavior. I believe if I were able to continue this medicated food, my "dead leopard" may have pulled through!
5. Slowly dosed up the copper over 1 week to a therapeutic level. I maintained between 1.61-1.86ppm copper for 18 days.
6. I then transferred both leopards to a new sterile quarantine tank and started to treat the water column with General Cure on 4/30/19. After 6 days, I performed a 30% water change and dosed a 2nd round of General Cure. During this time period, the "dead leopard" had totally stopped feeding and was slowly starving herself to razor thinness. As a last ditch effort, I attempted to force feed her medicated brine shrimp with a pipette...but the pipette was still too big to be able to inject the brine directly into her stomach, so i could only inject it into her mouth... which she would promptly spit out. After 2-3 weeks of agonizingly watching her starve to death while laying on the bottom, she finally passed. After the completion of the 2nd GC dose, I performed a 35% water change.
7. During the GC water treatment, I started to feed medicated foods again (GC+Focus). The "healthy leopard" didn't show as large of an appetite, but did consume the foods without showing the earlier odd swimming behaviors... which convinced me yhe medicated food plus copper treatment was too much for her to initially handle. I fed medicated foods 1x-3x per day for 18 days. The 1x to 3x per day were based upon how many times i could feed with my work schedule and the fish's "sleep/burying schedule" in the sand.
8. Performed a 50% water change following completion of all treatments. Performed an additional and final 3 weeks of observation with no signs of disease or distress.
9. Transferred the leopard to the acclimation box today (6/10/2019) in the morning after really fattening her up with a huge morning breakfast...expecting her to stress and not eat for a couple days while in the main tank acclimation box.
The process might not have been perfect, but it appeared to be a successful protocol so far with the healthy leopard. I believe the "dead leopard" was a weak specimen from the beginning. The only thing I would possibly do differently was start medicated feeding immediately without pre-dosing copper to the water... maybe that would have worked to save the other leopard!
If I see no aggression with the other fish, I may release her into the main tank after 2 days acclimation just before lights out (tomorrow).
Any signs of aggression from my "****** clown fish" (aka Krusty) will result in that clown being removed from the tank! Im tired of her biting me constantly while I work on the tank anyhow!
