Wrasse quarantine help

[Lps_lover12]

So I’ve never owned a wrasse before and decided to order 3, a royal flasher, carpenters flasher and Mccoskers flasher. The royal flasher was doa and the carpenters looked rough and ended up dying shortly after. Didn’t realize until after I got them and did some googling they usually don’t ship well. Mccosker is doing awesome today! My question is are there any diseases or parasites that wrasses are prone to? I saw somewhere that they can carry velvet without showing symptoms. My qt procedure is to leave them in there for 4 weeks no meds and just monitor (I’m in Canada so it’s almost impossible to get meds for fish) I do however have copper power but that’s it. Appreciate any help!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

So I’ve never owned a wrasse before and decided to order 3, a royal flasher, carpenters flasher and Mccoskers flasher. The royal flasher was doa and the carpenters looked rough and ended up dying shortly after. Didn’t realize until after I got them and did some googling they usually don’t ship well. Mccosker is doing awesome today! My question is are there any diseases or parasites that wrasses are prone to? I saw somewhere that they can carry velvet without showing symptoms. My qt procedure is to leave them in there for 4 weeks no meds and just monitor (I’m in Canada so it’s almost impossible to get meds for fish) I do however have copper power but that’s it. Appreciate any help!

Getting good quality fish is the biggest issue with that group of wrasses.
I prefer not to do observational quarantine - too many diseases can fly under the radar.
I prefer coppersafe or copper power and praziquantel for these fish - but you need good quality fish to start with.
Jay

 

[Lps_lover12]

Getting good quality fish is the biggest issue with that group of wrasses.
I prefer not to do observational quarantine - too many diseases can fly under the radar.
I prefer coppersafe or copper power and praziquantel for these fish - but you need good quality fish to start with.
Jay

The quality is good, got them from a very trusted store that I’ve ordered a lot from and never had any issues. I’m not sure if I can get the praziquantel here in Canada, I’d have to look into it

 

[1fastfxr]

This is my first time owning and quarantining wrasse also (a carpenter flasher and a pintail fairy wrasse). After much research and asking many questions this is what I decided to do. I transitioned 2 black balloon Mollies to saltwater and have them in the same qt tank as my wrasse. This is because of the wrasse being able to carry ich and velvet and not show either disease because of the thick mucus layer that wrasse have. The mollies, being from fresh water, have no immunities to marine diseases and being black will show the disease easily. In theory they will "hit" first. I then slowly raised my copper concentration up to 2.2 ppm of Copper Power over 7 days. The fish are in day 9 of this copper level, as of today, and are not showing signs of stress so far. After 15 days, just to give them 1 extra day to be safe, I will do 3 large water changes ( I don't change 100%) while running Cuprasorb. Once my copper level is at or near zero ppm I plan on removing the Cuprasorb and dosing 2 rounds of General Cure (not sure if thats available in Canada since it does contain a lower dose of Prazi) 5 days apart and changing 25% of the water after each round. On a side note, it's my understanding that wrasse are notorious for having flukes, thus the reason for dosing General Cure in the water column. If all goes well I will give them another week in qt, then off to the main display tank. I did notice white stringy poo from my flasher wrasse so the fish are also being fed General Cure bound by Focus to their food for the eighth day now. This will continue for 6 more days. The poo has returned to normal. I should also note that I decided to use the mollies because I don't have another non medicated tank to transfer the fish to after 14 days in therapeutic copper levels. I don't know if this is a good way or not, but it's the way I'm trying to quarantine wrasse. I hope this helps you and good luck.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

This is my first time owning and quarantining wrasse also (a carpenter flasher and a pintail fairy wrasse). After much research and asking many questions this is what I decided to do. I transitioned 2 black balloon Mollies to saltwater and have them in the same qt tank as my wrasse. This is because of the wrasse being able to carry ich and velvet and not show either disease because of the thick mucus layer that wrasse have. The mollies, being from fresh water, have no immunities to marine diseases and being black will show the disease easily. In theory they will "hit" first. I then slowly raised my copper concentration up to 2.2 ppm of Copper Power over 7 days. The fish are in day 9 of this copper level, as of today, and are not showing signs of stress so far. After 15 days, just to give them 1 extra day to be safe, I will do 3 large water changes ( I don't change 100%) while running Cuprasorb. Once my copper level is at or near zero ppm I plan on removing the Cuprasorb and dosing 2 rounds of General Cure (not sure if thats available in Canada since it does contain a lower dose of Prazi) 5 days apart and changing 25% of the water after each round. On a side note, it's my understanding that wrasse are notorious for having flukes, thus the reason for dosing General Cure in the water column. If all goes well I will give them another week in qt, then off to the main display tank. I did notice white stringy poo from my flasher wrasse so the fish are also being fed General Cure bound by Focus to their food for the eighth day now. This will continue for 6 more days. The poo has returned to normal. I should also note that I decided to use the mollies because I don't have another non medicated tank to transfer the fish to after 14 days in therapeutic copper levels. I don't know if this is a good way or not, but it's the way I'm trying to quarantine wrasse. I hope this helps you and good luck.

Congrats on using a more comprehensive quarantine process for your fish.

Just a couple of observations - there is no need to ramp copper power or copperafe up more slowly than 24 hours, as long as you have an accurate copper test. Taking longer just allows diseases to get started up and then they are much more difficult to control. I've had a few cases where people's fish died during the "ramp up period" and they blamed it on the copper, when it was actually a velvet infection.
Also - General Cure in focus and then in food isn't a good idea. You have no idea if the dose is correct or not. Also, the two components of GC have different dosing needs when fed orally, so if one is correct, the other will be wrong. For people who want to make medicated food, we have files in our library that discusses that, but it is difficult.

Jay

 

[1fastfxr]

Thanks for the advice Jay.