New leopard wrasse not doing well after shipment

[MnFish1]

It appears it was half gone when it was delivered. I dont think you could have done anything to help it. If your dead set on a leopard add a ton of pods to your main display before adding the fish. Then I'd skip quarantine and put it directly into the main display. Its not the most popular opinion to not quarantine first but the less stress on these fish the better. Its worked well for the ones in my tank.Does your tank have plenty of sand across the whole floor? A pile here and there probably isn't enough.

If a person is going to do this method - I would suggest doing is a little differently. Have a tank set up - and feed it well in the separate tank until you're sure that you're not going to spread something to the rest of your fish. Once it's healthy - and doing well - you also have the choice to treat with hyposalinity, for example - and or prazipro - which would mitigate a lot of the quarantine risk you're mentioning. If one can not quarantine a fish, its probably best not to buy that type of fish - since depending on the source, you can risk the rest of your tank.

A large part of quarantine risk/benefit also depends on the source of the fish. If you have an LFS nearby where the fish can be monitored (which is not uncommon as a practice) - and be ensured that its eating - and its not going to be traveling across country, there may be less of a risk. Additionally, purchasing already quarantined fish is also a better option (IMHO) than just putting them in your display.

 

[56longroof]

If a person is going to do this method - I would suggest doing is a little differently. Have a tank set up - and feed it well in the separate tank until you're sure that you're not going to spread something to the rest of your fish. Once it's healthy - and doing well - you also have the choice to treat with hyposalinity, for example - and or prazipro - which would mitigate a lot of the quarantine risk you're mentioning. If one can not quarantine a fish, its probably best not to buy that type of fish - since depending on the source, you can risk the rest of your tank.

A large part of quarantine risk/benefit also depends on the source of the fish. If you have an LFS nearby where the fish can be monitored (which is not uncommon as a practice) - and be ensured that its eating - and its not going to be traveling across country, there may be less of a risk. Additionally, purchasing already quarantined fish is also a better option (IMHO) than just putting them in your display.

I'm not a advocate for quarantine. I know it's not a popular opinion and it works for alot of people but not for me. I tend to follow the methods Paul B uses and it's worked out great. I just dont see the need in stressing a already sensitive fish further. I have a Ornate,Black,and Choati in my tank. All have thrived without being subjected to chemicals to make them "healthy". I understand being overly cautious with the price some of these specimens command but I feel it's not warranted. Like I said, not a popular opinion but it's mine and I stand by it.

 

[Kasrift]

I'm not a advocate for quarantine. I know it's not a popular opinion and it works for alot of people but not for me. I tend to follow the methods Paul B uses and it's worked out great. I just dont see the need in stressing a already sensitive fish further. I have a Ornate,Black,and Choati in my tank. All have thrived without being subjected to chemicals to make them "healthy". I understand being overly cautious with the price some of these specimens command but I feel it's not warranted. Like I said, not a popular opinion but it's mine and I stand by it.

To each their own, but I think leopards can do fine in QT. I got a small bluestar through 3 weeks of copper power, 3 weeks of Prazi, and then observation with GC and had no problems. It eats everything and is easy going.

 

[christinna77]

I think it was just a bad luck with shipping, honestly. I've ordered from the store before and they always delivered very healthy fish/coral. They pre-quarantine them too, but I still wanted to do an observation (no meds or copper) for another 2 weeks before putting it in my DT. Just because of its size - it was easier for me to see if it was properly eating, and healthy.

I've been dosing pods into DT and I've also got live brine shrimp, plus the wrasse was reported to be eating reef frenzy. It was doing really well until it got shipped, so something must've happened during transit.

And yes, my DT got lots of sand all over.

 

[zoohoot]

Sorry for the loss. I am going through the same thing myself. Almost identical circumstances. The input on this thread has been helpful.

 

[MnFish1]

I'm not a advocate for quarantine. I know it's not a popular opinion and it works for alot of people but not for me. I tend to follow the methods Paul B uses and it's worked out great. I just dont see the need in stressing a already sensitive fish further. I have a Ornate,Black,and Choati in my tank. All have thrived without being subjected to chemicals to make them "healthy". I understand being overly cautious with the price some of these specimens command but I feel it's not warranted. Like I said, not a popular opinion but it's mine and I stand by it.

I have no concerns about your opinion on QT - I was just giving my opinion on how to do it differently - I would never drop a fish into a tank. without some kind of quarantine - and many of those methods do not mention chemical methods - do I think we agree?

 

[christinna77]

Sorry for the loss. I am going through the same thing myself. Almost identical circumstances. The input on this thread has been helpful.

Hope yours can pull through! I just think they're extremely bad at handling any sort of shipping stress :(

 

[zoohoot]

Hope yours can pull through! I just think they're extremely bad at handling any sort of shipping stress :(

Thank you! One is not looking good, the other I have not seen in 48 hours. Hoping he/she is hiding in the sand.

 

[Kasrift]

For what it's worth, I bought my bluestar online. It looked fine in the shipping bag, but after a longer acclimation and placing it in quarantine, it kind of just drifted around listlessly. I had sand in a container, it didn't find it. I manually picked up the fish and placed it in the sand, and it still didn't stay. I left it alone for four days and it found the sand by itself. It stayed there maybe two days and then came out at odd times.

I'd read they get "jet lag" , so I feed at lights off and lights on time and it ate and went back to sleep. Eventually it started staying out at all times and eats everything.

As for copper, I always try to do a week of observation first. Then I slowly ramped copper over a week to therapeutic. It handled copper fine.

 

[MnFish1]

For what it's worth, I bought my bluestar online. It looked fine in the shipping bag, but after a longer acclimation and placing it in quarantine, it kind of just drifted around listlessly. I had sand in a container, it didn't find it. I manually picked up the fish and placed it in the sand, and it still didn't stay. I left it alone for four days and it found the sand by itself. It stayed there maybe two days and then came out at odd times.

I'd read they get "jet lag" , so I feed at lights off and lights on time and it ate and went back to sleep. Eventually it started staying out at all times and eats everything.

As for copper, I always try to do a week of observation first. Then I slowly ramped copper over a week to therapeutic. It handled copper fine.

I think this is true - I have had fish I was sure were 'sick' - that did fine. However. that's not to minimize symptoms. These fish (about which I'm talking) - were (looking like) dead in the bag - but recovered. The key is watching for disease.

 

[NancyFish]

if you dosed ammo lock to the bag, you were given Very bad advice as its a freshwater product and does not Lock up ammonia as the bottle implies. Fish in shipped bags produce carbon dioxide and ammonia which lowers the pH of the water in the bag, and in turn makes the ammonia toxic to the fish. When you acclimate them, if not done just right, you drive off the carbon dioxide faster than you are diluting the ammonia which then raises the pH of the water in the bag, and in turn makes the residual ammonia very toxic to the fish.

Do you recommend drip acclimation with leopards or just temp match then drop?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Do you recommend drip acclimation with leopards or just temp match then drop?

temp- salinity and even PH match

 

[ReefED!]

Agree that vendor is behind the times. I worked fish retail in the 2000’s and even then wholesalers railed against drip acclimation. Especially for fish shipped overnight because shipping stress and ammonia toxicity when you open the bag is way worse than the change in salinity/water parameters. I keep my salinity at 1.020 when getting new fish into QT or observation unless I know the vendor runs a higher salinity as most wholesale/fish store vendors run lower salinity in their systems and going quickly up in salinity is worse than going down for the fish.

What do you do with hypo arrivals?

I know drip has risks but my understanding was going from 1.019 to 1.026 was worse

 

[56longroof]

What do you do with hypo arrivals?

I know drip has risks but my understanding was going from 1.019 to 1.026 was worse

Check out Dr Reefs acclimating instructions. Works really well.

 

[skey44]

What do you do with hypo arrivals?

I know drip has risks but my understanding was going from 1.019 to 1.026 was worse

I changed the salinity of the observation tank to match supplier.

 

[christinna77]

Imo it's tricky. I'm looking at a different place to order fish from now, and their acclimation policy is to use prime and drip acclimate for a full hour. No refunds if this process isn't properly followed and the fish doesn't make it :/

 

[larrysaltisfun]

This has been a fascinating thread just to read through. The expert opinions are absolute critical that are presented here. Our R2R community is amazingly fortunate to have free expert advice which is boiled down to help us to enjoy a very tricky hobby at times. IMO acquiring a healthy fish to start with is a huge part of the battle as well.

 

[twentyleagues]

Imo it's tricky. I'm looking at a different place to order fish from now, and their acclimation policy is to use prime and drip acclimate for a full hour. No refunds if this process isn't properly followed and the fish doesn't make it :/

There has been "studies" done by people here that are way more knowledgeable than me in the world of science that shows prime does nothing for ammonia in saltwater.
That said, and its not that I dont believe them, but I helped out at a lfs in the early 2000s I would go with the manager to the airport to pick up trans-ships. Its unfortunate but there was always that one box we would cut open and at least one bag would make you gag with just opening the box. We would temp acclimate and match salinity using drip method and we would lose fish from time to time with obvious ammonia poisoning. Some of the local reefers and myself started a group and we would have monthly meetings in the store. The manager got a couple different industry companies to come to the meetings and give a presentation one was Seachem. They gave a presentation on a few of their products one was Prime. We at the store started adding Prime to the bags/buckets we were acclimating and we did see less ammonia poisoning issues while acclimating. I took a 12 year "break" from the hobby and come back to people here sayng Prime doesnt work. I had a hard time believing it. I dont know what was happening all those years before, maybe the active ingredient in Prime has changed or it was a placebo effect in the first place. It did seem to work and work well in the early 2000s. I have brought this up before I think in one of the main Prime threads. I am on the side of for whatever reason Prime does not do what it says it will do for us at least not anymore (if it ever did). Too many smarter people than me have pointed it out.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Imo it's tricky. I'm looking at a different place to order fish from now, and their acclimation policy is to use prime and drip acclimate for a full hour. No refunds if this process isn't properly followed and the fish doesn't make it :/

I'd use Amquel instead of Prime, I keep hearing that Prime doesn't work as intended. I've used Amquel for 40+ years, so instead of testing Prime, I just use that. Drip acclimation is tough to do correctly, it needs to be more of a flow than a drip and you need to aerate the water. I scanned this thread and it doesn't look like I posted my acclimation thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/acclimation-methods.903/