Leopard Wrasse Care..

[Triggerfishlover]

Hello!
I was in my LFS today and saw a leopard wrasse.. such a good looking fish and now I can’t stop thinking about him! I’d love to add him to my tank (75 gallons).. which all it has in it is orchid dottyback, 2 clown fish, and a shrimp..
reading online these guys seem tricky to keep? Wondering how difficult they are? The main thing seems to be getting them to eat.. so what do they eat is my main question.. any advice would be great! Thanks!

 

[Hemmdog]

I love leopards! I have a Moyers and a black leopard, I also had a potters for awhile but sadly lost him in a long power outage. They are not tricky at all imo. The tricky part is when they get shipped in they commonly have intestinal parasites. If they are healthy and eating and not getting thin at the LFS they should be good to go. They need sand to sleep in. Mine eat mysis, and smaller meaty foods like Lrs nano reef frenzy; they haven’t eaten pellets for me but there is a tank I am currently sitting for and his leopard will eat pellets, the reef nutrition refrigerated ones, tdo or something. Best to start with smaller frozen mysis like hakari though. They will also eat pods in your tank, lots of pods, they graze all day.

They sound like they would make a great addition to your tank if you have sand!

 

[maroun.c]

As said couple rounds of prazinshoukd be enough to treat intestinal parasites. They come from a different time zone so kightnneed some light acclimation to move them to your zone. Need to makensurentheyrenfeeding well before moving to tank.
All of the above makes it necessary to have a quarantine for them.

 

[lion king]

Highly recommended to immediately treat for internal parasites, almost always comes in with parasites, this is usually the cause of their demise and difficulty of feeding. A good idea to have a specialized qt with pods and start out feeding live brine shrimp, live black worms. Once healthy and parasite free seem to easily switch out live brine by mixing in frozen brine and mysis. Will generally start to come around to many prepared foods. Obviously finding one already eating prepared food is best, would still immediately treat for internal parasites. Not a good idea to immediately place in dt even if eating at lfs, if they decide not to take to prepared foods, will eventually starve. Best to get eating really well before putting in dt.

 

[Hemmdog]

Maybe I just have been lucky. I’ve never had any with parasites or food pickiness. They always eat the frozen mysis on day one and eat a ton. They are all fat, vibrant, healthy fish. My moyers is still on a weird sleep schedule after 7 months. Wakes up before dawn and goes to bed in the early afternoon. Huge for a moyers, 7 inches or so, supermale.

 

[mattzang]

moyers is the only kind i've tried so far. i got it from the lfs where it was for at least a month and i've had it 3-4 weeks, it eats literally everything. frozen/pellets/flakes. i did a deworm of GC + focus and a h2o2 bath

obviously getting them from lfs where u see them eat prepared foods is ideal, but the rumors that moyers are on the easier end of the leopard spectrum seems true for me at least

 

[Triggerfishlover]

I love leopards! I have a Moyers and a black leopard, I also had a potters for awhile but sadly lost him in a long power outage. They are not tricky at all imo. The tricky part is when they get shipped in they commonly have intestinal parasites. If they are healthy and eating and not getting thin at the LFS they should be good to go. They need sand to sleep in. Mine eat mysis, and smaller meaty foods like Lrs nano reef frenzy; they haven’t eaten pellets for me but there is a tank I am currently sitting for and his leopard will eat pellets, the reef nutrition refrigerated ones, tdo or something. Best to start with smaller frozen mysis like hakari though. They will also eat pods in your tank, lots of pods, they graze all day.

They sound like they would make a great addition to your tank if you have sand!

Hmm... I don’t have sand I have crushed coral ( not sure if that would work for him

 

[mattzang]

i think that'd be asking for cuts/scrapes and then infections. i asked one of the expert folks on here about grain sizes for wrasses and i believe the consensus was special grade being the largest ideally

Sand Type	Grain Sizes (mm)	Average Density
Fiji Pink	0.5 - 1.5	90lbs per cubic foot
Special Grade	1.0 - 2.0	85lbs per cubic foot
Bahamas Oolite	0.25 - 1.0	96lbs per cubic foot
Indo-Pacific Black	0.25 - 5.0	90lbs per cubic foot
West Caribbean Reef	1.0 - 5.0	90lbs per cubic foot
Hawaiian Black	0.25 - 3.5	80lbs per cubic foot
Bimini Pink	0.5 - 5.0	90lbs per cubic foot
Natural Reef	3.0 - 5.5	85lbs per cubic foot
Florida Crushed Coral	3.0 - 5.5	72lbs per cubic foot
Aragonite Fiji Pink	0.5 - 1.5	90lbs per cubic foot
Aragonite Special Grade	1.0 - 2.0	85lbs per cubic foot

 

[najer]

My little girl takes frozen and flake, possibly pellets, think of it as keeping a mandarin as they are busy, active hunters, if a leopard looks lethargic then walk away imo.

 

[evolved]

i asked one of the expert folks on here about grain sizes for wrasses and i believe the consensus was special grade being the largest ideally

IMO, up to 3mm is fine.
Crushed coral won't work though; it will certainly cause issues.