Leopard wrasse in 34 gallon?

[stellarfly]

Hello fellow reefers,

Will a leopard wrasse do okay in a 34 gallon tank with two clownfish? I read (in the 500 fishes book) you can keep one in as little as 20 gallons! Any thoughts. I love these fish and would be thrilled to add one.

Cheers

[daniella3d]

I think it's a bit too small and unless you have a very good cover he'll probably jump out.

Originally Posted by stellarfly

Hello fellow reefers,

Will a leopard wrasse do okay in a 34 gallon tank with two clownfish? I read (in the 500 fishes book) you can keep one in as little as 20 gallons! Any thoughts. I love these fish and would be thrilled to add one.

Cheers

[doch]

The main thing to worry about with them is food. Many of them will only eat pods. You need a well established tank. Size of your tank Mady limit the pods as well. And Danielle its right. Wrasse are excellent carpet surfers.

[reefwars]

if you do get one get a black they are easier to keep and adapt to food easy. you would be fine in a 34g as long as it eats prepared foods.

i have one in a 50g with no live rock or sand he hunts all day so not a "big swimmer" mine eats everything from pellets to frozen to pods.


i currently have 2 black ones, one in a 90g and one in a 50g both adapted to prepared foods right away.

the red not so much

[fishytime]

Leopard wrasses are more difficult to get to eat ....they need a sand bed for sleeping and to hide if they feel threatened.... and I would say that a 6" fish probably should'nt go in a 34g tank.....

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Leopard wrasses are more difficult to get to eat ....they need a sand bed for sleeping and to hide if they feel threatened.... and I would say that a 6" fish probably should'nt go into a 34g tank.....

i ended up putting a bowl with sand for mine to sleep in, without he was doing fine just was weird watching him sleep on the glass between rocks:P


leopards are def tricky to get to eat, alot of them wont period

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

unless you have a very good cover he'll probably jump out.

Errr... Sorry, but I'm going to have to challenge the notion that Leopard wrasses are jumpers because other wrasses are jumpers. This is over generalizing an entire family of fish. It's like me saying that malamut's are great sled dogs and that because a chihuahua is also a dog it also makes a good sled dog. While most wrasses hit the turbo button and head for the surface when startled, stressed (or seemingly for fun sometimes), a leopard wrasse's natural tendency is to face plant into the sand and hide. This has been my experience both in aquariums (I pretty much only keep leopard wrasse's and anthias) and when diving (where you rarely seem them more than a few feet away from a sandy spot or hole where they can dive). Yes, all fish are capable of jumping and running an open top does run that risk, but a leopard wrasse won't seek out a tiny hole to jump like other wrasses do. Of all the fish in my tank my leopards are the least likely to jump (knock on wood).

Feeding is by far the most challenging aspect of these fish. I've always been lucky and found specimens that eat at the store. I would consider this the bare minimum for a leopard wrasse. Unless you see it eat there, there's probably little chance of you getting it to eat unless you are experienced in this. You can sometimes get one to start eating but it takes time, patience and luck. Daniella usually suggests using live white worms. These are awesome and usually work very well. I also suggest a mixture of live baby brine, fish roe and chopped mysis. If it won't take one of these four foods, you've got an uphill battle ahead of you. I suggest feeding a mixture of these in the beginning and see what it takes. Leopard wrasses a more picky about size, shape and movement rather than taste. Once you see it take something from your mix you'll know what you're dealing with. When they are small and young, they're primarily benthic feeders or snap up small plankton and will usually only go after small prey like pods. Having a prepared food that is small and sinks to the bottom will usually get them going. As they get bigger they will start to chase down pelagic prey more and will take bigger, meatier food. Once you can get them used to the size and shape of fish roe, pellets aren't too far off. My potters wrasse pretty much only eats pellets now but will eat fish roe if he can get to it before the anthias. He eats like a pig and is a fat bastard. Having a piggy eater like an anthias around helps to teach them that the prepared foods are safe to eat.

While pods are important in the diet of wrasses, I don't think this is the key to successfully keeping a leopard wrasse, especially as they get bigger. I've seen seemingly healthy leopard wrasses eating only pods perish in 200G systems, so either leopard wrasses require more pods than what is available in our systems or their diets don't consist entirely of pods. Looking up a few papers here, gut analysis of a Macropharygodon and Pseudocheilinus octotaenia (similar feeding habits to Macropharygodon ) shows that while their diet consists of 42.5 to 89.2% crustaceans, 64.5 to 100% of the crustaceans they ate were decapoda and they ate as little as 1.8% to 10% amphipoda and copepoda. Where we got off assuming that a Leopard wrasse can live off a diet consisting solely of amphipoda and copepods, I have no idea but it's pretty dumb. Sure, there are probably some cases of leopard wrasses feeding only on what they find in the rocks, but if you actually want to be successful with a leopard wrasse you need to get them eating a fuller and more varied diet. This means feeding them food other than just what they can find in our systems.

As for space, a 34G should be fine for a smaller specimen as the leopards aren't big swimmer like lined wrasses are. That said, keep your rockwork more open with areas to swim through and keep a decent sand bed for it to sleep in a night. Leopard wrasses appear to be more resistant to skin afflictions than some other fish, but this is because they sleep in the sand. Parasites like ich perpetuate as they hide out in the spots where fish return to every night to sleep. It's been suggested in some papers that some parasites like ich cannot survive or spread in sand, so it's been suggested that fish like wrasses took to sleeping in the sand partly for this reason. Personally, I've found that when I've accidentally covered my wrasses sleeping spot and he spends the night in the rocks, he'll get ich. Give him his sand bed back and the ich disappears. Whether this is because of stress or whether the sand does interrupt the life cycle of the *parasite, I can't say. But I do know my wrasse is much happier with a sand bed to sleep in.

Final thing I've noticed about them: they like friends. If you can get a pair, do so. Even a fish of similar size and shape will make a good buddy. The instant I added a coral beauty angel to my tank my wrasse's demeanor completely changed from when he was with strictly anthias. The two of them are buddies now and bomb around the tank together find ways to F- with me (and they're good at it).

Leopard wrasse: tough but rewarding.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

Errr... Sorry, but I'm going to have to challenge the notion that Leopard wrasses are jumpers because other wrasses are jumpers. This is over generalizing an entire family of fish. It's like me saying that malamut's are great sled dogs and that because a chihuahua is also a dog it also makes a good sled dog. While most wrasses hit the turbo button and head for the surface when startled, stressed (or seemingly for fun sometimes), a leopard wrasse's natural tendency is to face plant into the sand and hide. This has been my experience both in aquariums (I pretty much only keep leopard wrasse's and anthias) and when diving (where you rarely seem them more than a few feet away from a sandy spot or hole where they can dive). Yes, all fish are capable of jumping and running an open top does run that risk, but a leopard wrasse won't seek out a tiny hole to jump like other wrasses do. Of all the fish in my tank my leopards are the least likely to jump (knock on wood).

Feeding is by far the most challenging aspect of these fish. I've always been lucky and found specimens that eat at the store. I would consider this the bare minimum for a leopard wrasse. Unless you see it eat there, there's probably little chance of you getting it to eat unless you are experienced in this. You can sometimes get one to start eating but it takes time, patience and luck. Daniella usually suggests using live white worms. These are awesome and usually work very well. I also suggest a mixture of live baby brine, fish roe and chopped mysis. If it won't take one of these four foods, you've got an uphill battle ahead of you. I suggest feeding a mixture of these in the beginning and see what it takes. Leopard wrasses a more picky about size, shape and movement rather than taste. Once you see it take something from your mix you'll know what you're dealing with. When they are small and young, they're primarily benthic feeders or snap up small plankton and will usually only go after small prey like pods. Having a prepared food that is small and sinks to the bottom will usually get them going. As they get bigger they will start to chase down pelagic prey more and will take bigger, meatier food. Once you can get them used to the size and shape of fish roe, pellets aren't too far off. My potters wrasse pretty much only eats pellets now but will eat fish roe if he can get to it before the anthias. He eats like a pig and is a fat bastard. Having a piggy eater like an anthias around helps to teach them that the prepared foods are safe to eat.

While pods are important in the diet of wrasses, I don't think this is the key to successfully keeping a leopard wrasse, especially as they get bigger. I've seen seemingly healthy leopard wrasses eating only pods perish in 200G systems, so either leopard wrasses require more pods than what is available in our systems or their diets don't consist entirely of pods. Looking up a few papers here, gut analysis of a Macropharygodon and Pseudocheilinus octotaenia (similar feeding habits to Macropharygodon ) shows that while their diet consists of 42.5 to 89.2% crustaceans, 64.5 to 100% of the crustaceans they ate were decapoda and they ate as little as 1.8% to 10% amphipoda and copepoda. Where we got off assuming that a Leopard wrasse can live off a diet consisting solely of amphipoda and copepods, I have no idea but it's pretty dumb. Sure, there are probably some cases of leopard wrasses feeding only on what they find in the rocks, but if you actually want to be successful with a leopard wrasse you need to get them eating a fuller and more varied diet. This means feeding them food other than just what they can find in our systems.

As for space, a 34G should be fine for a smaller specimen as the leopards aren't big swimmer like lined wrasses are. That said, keep your rockwork more open with areas to swim through and keep a decent sand bed for it to sleep in a night. Leopard wrasses appear to be more resistant to skin afflictions than some other fish, but this is because they sleep in the sand. Parasites like ich perpetuate as they hide out in the spots where fish return to every night to sleep. It's been suggested in some papers that some parasites like ich cannot survive or spread in sand, so it's been suggested that fish like wrasses took to sleeping in the sand partly for this reason. Personally, I've found that when I've accidentally covered my wrasses sleeping spot and he spends the night in the rocks, he'll get ich. Give him his sand bed back and the ich disappears. Whether this is because of stress or whether the sand does interrupt the life cycle of the *parasite, I can't say. But I do know my wrasse is much happier with a sand bed to sleep in.

Final thing I've noticed about them: they like friends. If you can get a pair, do so. Even a fish of similar size and shape will make a good buddy. The instant I added a coral beauty angel to my tank my wrasse's demeanor completely changed from when he was with strictly anthias. The two of them are buddies now and bomb around the tank together find ways to F- with me (and they're good at it).

Leopard wrasse: tough but rewarding.

i gotta say man everything you said there describes my leopards to a tee, in my fragtank by its self my leopard was always near the top , as soon as a friend(melanarus) was added they swim side by side and the leopard follows the other wrasse in hunting....always on the bottom ,i think the friend thing is very important.

after reading this too im also glad my leopards are taking prepared foods.

i had to add a sandbed in a tupperware dish for them both after a while as i felt like they werent as happy as they could be without the sand. i believe it would have stressed them out over time.