Leopard Wrasse anyone?

your method sounds good to me haugcm2

corals - not IMO, they dont produce / create anything like the wastes that fish do
and thus ammonia in the transit bags is much less of an issue IME

But with corals a good preventive treatment against parasites is part of my acclimatisation routine

I use Coral RX , but there are others
and this will give you some insurance against introducing things like flatworms, red bugs, etc and other parasites that could reach plague proportions in your tank under the right/wrong conditions

Steve

 

oh ok. also something to look into before I go buy any more coral, which I plan on doing soon. thanks, you've been really helpful

 

oh wait, since I don't have a quarantine tank, can I treat them with the Coral RX while they are still in the bag/acclimating?

 

Yes

I place the coral and the water it comes with into a bucket
and then add the required amount of drops to that bucket along with some tank water, as this helps acclimatise

you rinse them in there, swish them about gently to encourage any pests to vacate the coral or the rock/ plug the coral is on
then you do the same again in a bucket of tank water to rinse of RX before adding coral to DT

so its a good idea to have some new saltwater ready to top off your tank when you are about to go coral shopping

Steve

 

oh ok, good to know

 

You've gotten sound advice in here so far, so I'll just add this. While I understand the appeal of a leopard wrasse to you, it may be best if you don't try to start with one as they are a delicate genus. Your odds of success with that entire genus will be much better with an experienced hand.

 

Did you check the salinity of the bagged water verses the display?

I've actually given up acclimating shipped fish. The ammonia in the bags have been crazy high. I get them out as quickly as possible. I always make sure that I'm not sticking them in a higher salinity though, but lately the bag water has been coming at 1.030!!!!! The last 4 shipments!

I had a leopard wrasse for 6-8 years (I forget). Once established and eating well, they are pretty hardy. People can have a bit of an issue breaking them in, though.

 

leopard wrasses are very difficult to take care mostly because of feeding it and it is extremely delicate, probably comparable to a harlequin filefish

 

Yes, they can be very hard to acclimate. But, I also have orange spot file fish and they are in no way along the same caliber in difficulty.

 

one thing to add on top of the great advice here is that some fish just dont do the shipping too well... i mean most wrasses are hard to get in.

The collectors starve the fish for 2-3 days before shipping them overseas so that they dont leave excrement in the bags and end up killing themselves in their own ammonia. therefore the fish always come in with no appetite and sometimes starve to death. it is hard with wrasses because they have such fast metabolisms that it really takes a big tole on them to not eat at all for 3 days.... then getting them to get their appetite back while they are stressed out usually proves to be a hard task.

wrasses are always just super tricky and take some experience to get them home successfully