Leopard Wrasse Flashing

VJM 21 · Mar 9, 2019

I picked up a largish (3.5”) male blue star leopard 2 days ago. He’s been eating well, but I saw him rubbing against a chunk of rock in my qt yesterday, so I dosed prazi last night. He only flashed once while I observed him. Today he looks extremely agitated, and he has been rubbing his gills against surfaces much more frequently. No physical symptoms that I can see, but I’m not sure that you’d be able to see ich on a leopard. I’m prepared to start copper, but I’d like to do a water change first. The prazi will not have been in the tank for 24 hours until tonight.

Sorry for the long post - any advice would be appreciated.

HotRocks · Mar 9, 2019

It could have ich or velvet and likely you wouldn't see any spots if it did.

If the fish was heavily afflicted with flukes the scratching could be irritation from that. However I would still treat the fish with copper as I treat all mine with copper.

VJM 21 · Mar 9, 2019

HotRocks said:
It could have ich or velvet and likely you wouldn't see any spots if it did.

If the fish was heavily afflicted with flukes the scratching could be irritation from that. However I would still treat the fish with copper as I treat all mine with copper.

Would you cut short the prazi treatment or wait until it’s completed its course (24 hours)?

Frtdrmrose7 · Mar 9, 2019

VJM 21 said:
Would you cut short the prazi treatment or wait until it’s completed its course (24 hours)?

Start copper ASAP, I have wrasses in QT that had velvet. They had the same symptom (flashing). I eventually lost one to it and other than flashing never showed any other symptoms. After 2 days in copper power at 1.65 they stopped. I started off at 1.82 but they showed sensitivity and suppressed appetite, at the lower level they are eating like crazy.

VJM 21 · Mar 9, 2019

Frtdrmrose7 said:
Start copper ASAP, I have wrasses in QT that had velvet. They had the same symptom (flashing). I eventually lost one to it and other than flashing never showed any other symptoms. After 2 days in copper power at 1.65 they stopped. I started off at 1.82 but they showed sensitivity and suppressed appetite, at the lower level they are eating like crazy.

Sounds good. I suspected something worse than ich considering the level of irritation.

Thank you