Tamberav's IM 25 Lagoon - Kuiter's Leopard Wrasse!

[Snow_Phoenix]

8 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

 

Yeah, I might do a fang blenny since it should be fine with a combtooth but who knows, no definite stocking plan, kind of depends what shows up in stock.

 

That is weird they would ship them like that, no DOA policy? 

Most of the time, no DOA. Those that offer DOA, usually offer a partial refund or can ship out a new fish as long as you (the buyer) bear the shipment cost a second time, but we cannot choose the courier service to be used for the shipment. I tried buying a pair of mini maxis few years ago. The packaging was so poor that the plastic burst inside the cardboard box when it arrived, and both nems were dead (and emitted a horrible odor). Despite showing the evidence of poor packaging and DOA to the seller, he refused to refund and blamed it fully on the courier service *he chose. That was the last time I tried ordering marine livestock online. 

I think a fang blenny and a combtooth *can work. Fang blennies spend most of their time hovering in the water column anyway, and they don't usually perch on the rocks, so they wouldn't compete with the combtooth for space/territory. Just make sure the second blenny is of smaller species - don't get a Starry or anything of that species size. They'll fight. 

I currently have a beast of a Starry in my nano and I love him. He gets along fine with all my other fish (2 small Hi-Fins, 1 small GCG & 1 juvi ornate leopard wrasse). I don't think he'll get along with a fang blenny, though. It's fine by me anyway. Thanos (my blenny) provides a healthy dose of entertainment in my tank. He's very personable too. 

 

 

[Tamberav]

26 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Most of the time, no DOA. Those that offer DOA, usually offer a partial refund or can ship out a new fish as long as you (the buyer) bear the shipment cost a second time, but we cannot choose the courier service to be used for the shipment. I tried buying a pair of mini maxis few years ago. The packaging was so poor that the plastic burst inside the cardboard box when it arrived, and both nems were dead (and emitted a horrible odor). Despite showing the evidence of poor packaging and DOA to the seller, he refused to refund and blamed it fully on the courier service *he chose. That was the last time I tried ordering marine livestock online. 

I think a fang blenny and a combtooth *can work. Fang blennies spend most of their time hovering in the water column anyway, and they don't usually perch on the rocks, so they wouldn't compete with the combtooth for space/territory. Just make sure the second blenny is of smaller species - don't get a Starry or anything of that species size. They'll fight. 

I currently have a beast of a Starry in my nano and I love him. He gets along fine with all my other fish (2 small Hi-Fins, 1 small GCG & 1 juvi ornate leopard wrasse). I don't think he'll get along with a fang blenny, though. It's fine by me anyway. Thanos (my blenny) provides a healthy dose of entertainment in my tank. He's very personable too. 

 

 

 

I guess if you don't have a DOA policy than you don't have to care how the fish is shipped 😞

 

I saw you starry, he is so cool! I like starrys but I hear they can sometimes be bullies of other fish in general. Sounds like you got a nice one though. Did you do anything for the leopard wrasse? train him to foods? I want to add a leopard to my 25g, tried once but was DOA (they don't do well in shipping) and the LFS here doesn't have any guarantee like I can get online. I ordered two that should be here Tues, see if any make it through shipping... I only plan on keeping one but figured I have a better chance of at least one of them making it if I buy two. I guess if both make it, I have to rehome one.

[Snow_Phoenix]

15 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

 

I guess if you don't have a DOA policy than you don't have to care how the fish is shipped 😞

 

I saw you starry, he is so cool! I like starrys but I hear they can sometimes be bullies of other fish in general. Sounds like you got a nice one though. Did you do anything for the leopard wrasse? train him to foods? I want to add a leopard to my 25g, tried once but was DOA (they don't do well in shipping) and the LFS here doesn't have any guarantee like I can get online. I ordered two that should be here Tues, see if any make it through shipping... I only plan on keeping one but figured I have a better chance of at least one of them making it if I buy two. I guess if both make it, I have to rehome one.

I suppose that's true. 😞

 

Temperament-wise, my starry seems alright - he doesn't touch any of the other fish or inverts, although I have seen him 'peck' the back of my hermits' shells - possibly in an attempt to forage for some microalgae. 

 

The wrasse was a bit finicky. To be perfectly honest, leopard wrasses are a hit-or-miss. A pair arrived at my LFS and was labelled incorrectly. I took a pic and went back home, googled and realized it was actually a male/female ornate leopard pair. When I returned to the store a week later, the female was gone but the male was there and he wasn't eating. I took a risk and brought him home. I have an in-tank fuge, so the tank was stocked with pods. He only ate pods for the first two to three weeks and turned down all prepared food. Someone on NR recommended getting NLS pellets or flakes - I bought both and tried it. He hated the flakes, but loved the NLS pellets for some reason. Until today, I only feed the tank twice a day and he only eats a few pellets at a time. Since his belly is quite plump, I assume he eats bristleworms and pods most of the time.

 

I think it's best you QT your pair and try to get them on prepared food first. I found it difficult to target-feed mine anything because he's skittish and always zooms away from my baster. Yesterday was the first day he accepted a mix of frozen mysis/brine, and I've had him for 2 to 3 months (?) now. As long as your tank is stocked with pods, I think your wrasses should be fine. 

[Tamberav]

Pods should be okay in the DT but I do think I may try and QT them (with sand and live rock). The LFS sells live black worms and I read they like those, I also could hatch some BBS also. Ugh what a lot of work.

22 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I suppose that's true. 😞

 

Temperament-wise, my starry seems alright - he doesn't touch any of the other fish or inverts, although I have seen him 'peck' the back of my hermits' shells - possibly in an attempt to forage for some microalgae. 

 

The wrasse was a bit finicky. To be perfectly honest, leopard wrasses are a hit-or-miss. A pair arrived at my LFS and was labelled incorrectly. I took a pic and went back home, googled and realized it was actually a male/female ornate leopard pair. When I returned to the store a week later, the female was gone but the male was there and he wasn't eating. I took a risk and brought him home. I have an in-tank fuge, so the tank was stocked with pods. He only ate pods for the first two to three weeks and turned down all prepared food. Someone on NR recommended getting NLS pellets or flakes - I bought both and tried it. He hated the flakes, but loved the NLS pellets for some reason. Until today, I only feed the tank twice a day and he only eats a few pellets at a time. Since his belly is quite plump, I assume he eats bristleworms and pods most of the time.

 

I think it's best you QT your pair and try to get them on prepared food first. I found it difficult to target-feed mine anything because he's skittish and always zooms away from my baster. Yesterday was the first day he accepted a mix of frozen mysis/brine, and I've had him for 2 to 3 months (?) now. As long as your tank is stocked with pods, I think your wrasses should be fine. 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Pods should be okay in the DT but I do think I may try and QT them (with sand and live rock). The LFS sells live black worms and I read they like those, I also could hatch some BBS also. Ugh what a lot of work.

 

Best of luck, Tam! But it is a rewarding fish to keep - provides a lot of activity to the tank, and constantly in motion.

 

And yeah, I suppose it is a lot of work. The things we do to keep the critters under our care happy.

[DaveFason]

Everything looks great!

[vlangel]

On 10/8/2018 at 12:32 AM, Snow_Phoenix said:

😕

 

I think Dawn has multiple blennies going on in one tank, but they're different types (fangs + combtooth + barnacle) so they occupy different territories. I tried keeping a bicolor with a two spot once in a nano - the bicolor harassed the two spot so much that I had to give one of the blennies away. They really, really get pissed off if there's another blenny in the tank with them for some reason. I've never seen any of my blennies harass my gobies, even though they share similar body shapes. (This goes for nano tanks)

 

Tank full of blennies definitely rocks. But I've seen it possible only in a mega-salty system in a display tank at the SEA Singapore Aquarium (Public). I estimate that tank to be at least >350G. There were dozens of blennies and dragonets in the same tank, but it was heavily stocked with corals and rock, so each individual had a territory of their own (I assume). I didn't witness any fighting in the 10 mins that I stood, staring at that tank. 

 

I also think I got away with it because they all went into the tank at the same time.  I can see that Linus is the most aggressive of my 3 types of blennies.  He occasionally tries to harrass the barnacles but they are so small and fit in such tiny crevices that they just laugh at him.  I am feeding that tank very heavily too so that might be helping.

[Snow_Phoenix]

19 minutes ago, vlangel said:

I also think I got away with it because they all went into the tank at the same time.  I can see that Linus is the most aggressive of my 3 types of blennies.  He occasionally tries to harrass the barnacles but they are so small and fit in such tiny crevices that they just laugh at him.  I am feeding that tank very heavily too so that might be helping.

Yes, combtooths can be unusually aggressive towards other combtooths in the same tank - I've experienced this twice in the past. And I do agree - adding them in all at the same time helps because there was no 'first' fish to stake a claim on a specific territory within the same tank. I love, love your barnacle blennies, btw. They're simply adorable! 

[Tamberav]

My shipment came yesterday morning, they sent the wrong coral from DD so I ended up with a free rainbow monti... but I had just bought one of those, grr! and missing the stylo I had ordered 😞

 

Two small female blue star leopards, one more like a size TINY, less than an inch. The larger one seems off and after adding her to the QT, she got stuck to the grate on the overflow, not a good sign. I helped free her. I thought I would come home to her dead but she is still kicking and seems a bit better but still off... disoriented acting, I am not sure she will make it. The teeny tiny one is acting more normal and burying itself in the sandbed (the bigger one isn't and just hiding under rocks). 

 

I had also ordered a captive bred court jester goby and he came plump but with tattered fins, sadly he had passed by time I got home from work. Not sure if it was disease or stress. I thought that fish would be the one to make it since it was captive bred, no such luck.

 

So the order might be a wash! Idk! we'll see if one of the leopards makes it. 

 

 

[Tamberav]

Okay well both leopards were out swimming now, fed my super secret stash of food, Nutramar Ova and they both ate. The bigger one flashed a few times on the glass/rocks, hopefully just flukes I can treat with prazipro in a few days. She still swims a little odd, It looks like swim bladder problem. 😞

 

The little one has a lot of gusto/spunk and seems to be doing well.

 

Little eyeball looking around when the lights came on:

 

2018-10-10_02-13-57 by Tana Jahangier, on Flickr

 

They look kind of big in this photo but it must be an illusion because that top one is tiny is much smaller than the bottom one. 

 

2018-10-10_02-14-49 by Tana Jahangier, on Flickr

[Snow_Phoenix]

6 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Okay well both leopards were out swimming now, fed my super secret stash of food, Nutramar Ova and they both ate. The bigger one flashed a few times on the glass/rocks, hopefully just flukes I can treat with prazipro in a few days. She still swims a little odd, It looks like swim bladder problem. 😞

 

The little one has a lot of gusto/spunk and seems to be doing well.

 

Little eyeball looking around when the lights came on:

 

2018-10-10_02-13-57 by Tana Jahangier, on Flickr

 

They look kind of big in this photo but it must be an illusion because that top one is tiny is much smaller than the bottom one. 

 

2018-10-10_02-14-49 by Tana Jahangier, on Flickr

They're both incredibly beautiful. I hope both of them make it through. And I love that tiny 'eyeball' peeking through the sandbed. So sneaky! 

[Tamberav]

That wrasse is fabulous! 

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

They're both incredibly beautiful. I hope both of them make it through. And I love that tiny 'eyeball' peeking through the sandbed. So sneaky! 

Thanks... Fingers crossed... Sucks I work all day and lights are out by the time I get home. I want to feed them more but will have to wait till my days off. 

[Tamberav]

Light timer failed I guess and light is still on when I got home at 4am... Doh... Don't see the tiny wrasse so prob buried in sand... The bigger one is still awake tho so I fed her. Her swimming has improved greatly and she is hunting the live rock for pods. 

 

Guys! She was legit floating upside down and getting stuck to the overflow when she arrived. She wedged herself into the rocks so she would stop floating to the top. 

 

I am not sure she is sleeping in the sand yet... Maybe because of the issue she had floating before. 

 

This is the girl I thought for sure would die.. Not out of the woods yet but hopeful. 

 

 

 

 

[vlangel]

I am happy that everything is so hopeful for the bigger wrasse.  With each day her prognosis improves.

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

Light timer failed I guess and light is still on when I got home at 4am... Doh... Don't see the tiny wrasse so prob buried in sand... The bigger one is still awake tho so I fed her. Her swimming has improved greatly and she is hunting the live rock for pods. 

 

Guys! She was legit floating upside down and getting stuck to the overflow when she arrived. She wedged herself into the rocks so she would stop floating to the top. 

 

I am not sure she is sleeping in the sand yet... Maybe because of the issue she had floating before. 

 

This is the girl I thought for sure would die.. Not out of the woods yet but hopeful. 

 

 

 

 

Could she have been damaged during shipment? Anyhow, I'm happy she's improving. Hope you get to see the tiny one out soon too. 

[Tamberav]

Brought some live brine home and both wrasses are pigging out on that. Just trying to get them feeding well and associating me with food. Will try to mix in some frozen mysis with it maybe tomorrow. I am surprised they seem to be taking to food so easily, I read up on these guys and saw plenty of posts of leopards not wanting anything to do with live foods.. ofc people also reported them hiding for days/weeks at a time and these guys were out the next day. Prognosis seems good but it's only been a few days so who knows.

 

Picked up a frag of 24k lepto which my picus blenny had to perch on to try out his new chair. Never seen him eat frozen but he a fatty... he goes to down on the GHA so I sort of just been letting it grow and gardening it to keep it at a reasonable amount rather than remove it all. 

 

On 10/11/2018 at 5:34 AM, vlangel said:

I am happy that everything is so hopeful for the bigger wrasse.  With each day her prognosis improves.

 

On 10/11/2018 at 6:10 AM, Snow_Phoenix said:

Could she have been damaged during shipment? Anyhow, I'm happy she's improving. Hope you get to see the tiny one out soon too. 

 

Thank you both, I am hopeful although I didn't intend to end up with two wrasses and will need to decide what to do if both make it. Right now they seem to like the company of the other, maybe that helped somehow, the little one was hiding behind the rocks and the bigger one popped out of the sand (yay she sleeping in the sand) and the little one wasn't afraid anymore and swam in front with her.

 

Snow, I was thinking infection but maybe not as she has recovered quickly. I really don't know... Maybe the stressed cause constipation or something? I did have a clown once accidentally gulp a huge amount of air trying to greedily get food and couldn't swim down after until she farted hours later.. lol yes I saw a huge gas bubble come out her butt and all was well 😛

 

I think she is swimming 100% normally now. 

 

[Tamberav]

Oh the LFS had super male pintail wrasse for $60, reason so cheap is it had some sort of parasite (twitching/shaking head) but was eating like a pig. If my QT was empty, that would have been temping to buy and fix him up. 

 

Photo for reference: 

[Snow_Phoenix]

55 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Brought some live brine home and both wrasses are pigging out on that. Just trying to get them feeding well and associating me with food. Will try to mix in some frozen mysis with it maybe tomorrow. I am surprised they seem to be taking to food so easily, I read up on these guys and saw plenty of posts of leopards not wanting anything to do with live foods.. ofc people also reported them hiding for days/weeks at a time and these guys were out the next day. Prognosis seems good but it's only been a few days so who knows.

 

Picked up a frag of 24k lepto which my picus blenny had to perch on to try out his new chair. Never seen him eat frozen but he a fatty... he goes to down on the GHA so I sort of just been letting it grow and gardening it to keep it at a reasonable amount rather than remove it all. 

 

 

 

Thank you both, I am hopeful although I didn't intend to end up with two wrasses and will need to decide what to do if both make it. Right now they seem to like the company of the other, maybe that helped somehow, the little one was hiding behind the rocks and the bigger one popped out of the sand (yay she sleeping in the sand) and the little one wasn't afraid anymore and swam in front with her.

 

Snow, I was thinking infection but maybe not as she has recovered quickly. I really don't know... Maybe the stressed cause constipation or something? I did have a clown once accidentally gulp a huge amount of air trying to greedily get food and couldn't swim down after until she farted hours later.. lol yes I saw a huge gas bubble come out her butt and all was well 😛

 

I think she is swimming 100% normally now. 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Oh the LFS had super male pintail wrasse for $60, reason so cheap is it had some sort of parasite (twitching/shaking head) but was eating like a pig. If my QT was empty, that would have been temping to buy and fix him up. 

 

Photo for reference: 

Sorry, couldn't help laughing at the clownfish-farting thing - really, OMG. I didn't even know fish could fart lol. 

 

That pintail wrasse is gorgeous. They go up to three figures where I live, and are usually poor shippers. Most of the 'exotic' and 'super-rare' fish we get here always come in sick and stressed. (Eg. Candy basslet, ruby dragonet, Naoko wrasse etc.) Eventually the fish dies within a day or two and the LFS loses a lot of money. Hmm.

[Tamberav]

6 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

 

Sorry, couldn't help laughing at the clownfish-farting thing - really, OMG. I didn't even know fish could fart lol. 

 

That pintail wrasse is gorgeous. They go up to three figures where I live, and are usually poor shippers. Most of the 'exotic' and 'super-rare' fish we get here always come in sick and stressed. (Eg. Candy basslet, ruby dragonet, Naoko wrasse etc.) Eventually the fish dies within a day or two and the LFS loses a lot of money. Hmm.

 

Yeah they are usually 200'ish... this store has nice selection of coral and takes trade ins but none of the fish are QT and it is buy-at-your-own risk... fish just dropped in the tank as they arrive.... but inexpensive fish. We have a different store that the fish are QT for two weeks to make sure they are eating and appear healthy before offered for sale. Their fish are more normal price, not expensive. For example their pintails are $150.

 

I have never seen a candy basslet in person (I would love to)... most expensive fish I saw in person was a Gem Tang. 

[vlangel]

I would say the prognosis is improving on the wrasses. 

 

I wonder since one is smaller if they might be male and female.  (Forgive my ignorance but I know nothing about wrasses).  Can they change sexes like seahorses and clowns if they are still juvenile?

[Tamberav]

39 minutes ago, vlangel said:

I would say the prognosis is improving on the wrasses. 

 

I wonder since one is smaller if they might be male and female.  (Forgive my ignorance but I know nothing about wrasses).  Can they change sexes like seahorses and clowns if they are still juvenile?

They are both female but they do change sex like clownfish (and some other types of wrasses). From what I have read, even though they can change gender, it may or may not happen, its not like clowns where one will assume the role. It could be a month or years.

 

LA has a great pic of both:

 

 

 

 

This transitioning from female to male photo is pretty cool, it blows my mind to think how fish can change sex and dramatically change color in a few weeks.

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

 

Yeah they are usually 200'ish... this store has nice selection of coral and takes trade ins but none of the fish are QT and it is buy-at-your-own risk... fish just dropped in the tank as they arrive.... but inexpensive fish. We have a different store that the fish are QT for two weeks to make sure they are eating and appear healthy before offered for sale. Their fish are more normal price, not expensive. For example their pintails are $150.

 

I have never seen a candy basslet in person (I would love to)... most expensive fish I saw in person was a Gem Tang. 

Candy basslet are beautiful, but overrated IMO. I've seen far more exotic and beautiful fish - wrasses mostly from the Pacific and Fiji, which I think is more worth purchasing. All the candys that arrived at the store always died within a day or two. Even when they arrived, they were in poor shape - ripped fins, floating to one side etc. I personally think they ship very, very poorly. Either that, or they're very sick and full of parasites. Few years back, the candys were listed as RM 100 per fish at my LFS. LFS stopped importing them completely once they kept arriving dead/sick and no one expressed interest. 

 

I saw an Indian Exquisite Wrasse (male) the other day and it was gorgeous. I've seen male Naoko wrasses too but they're super-pricey (upwards of U$D100 per fish) and when no one bought them, my LFS released them into one of their displays as permanent residents. 

 

I've never seen a Pintail in person, but there was a LFS in Penang (far northern state) that imported them once. I think it's one of those 'glamor' fish in the hobby here, where only the very rich can afford them. My manager and I had an interesting chat about 2 weeks ago - he's determined to make reefing affordable for as many people as possible. Since our ringgit currency is very weak, and anything marine-related is very expensive by an average Msian income standard, it's not possible to reef unless you budget and skimp on certain things. It's why I collect frags - we have beautiful colonies here from Indo, but the prices are three figures per colony. Too expensive. 

[Tamberav]

3 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Candy basslet are beautiful, but overrated IMO. I've seen far more exotic and beautiful fish - wrasses mostly from the Pacific and Fiji, which I think is more worth purchasing. All the candys that arrived at the store always died within a day or two. Even when they arrived, they were in poor shape - ripped fins, floating to one side etc. I personally think they ship very, very poorly. Either that, or they're very sick and full of parasites. Few years back, the candys were listed as RM 100 per fish at my LFS. LFS stopped importing them completely once they kept arriving dead/sick and no one expressed interest. 

 

I saw an Indian Exquisite Wrasse (male) the other day and it was gorgeous. I've seen male Naoko wrasses too but they're super-pricey (upwards of U$D100 per fish) and when no one bought them, my LFS released them into one of their displays as permanent residents. 

 

I've never seen a Pintail in person, but there was a LFS in Penang (far northern state) that imported them once. I think it's one of those 'glamor' fish in the hobby here, where only the very rich can afford them. My manager and I had an interesting chat about 2 weeks ago - he's determined to make reefing affordable for as many people as possible. Since our ringgit currency is very weak, and anything marine-related is very expensive by an average Msian income standard, it's not possible to reef unless you budget and skimp on certain things. It's why I collect frags - we have beautiful colonies here from Indo, but the prices are three figures per colony. Too expensive. 

 

Don't feel bad, I can't afford colonies either lol I just buy the cheap frags. I mean they grow anyways...I do tend to budget more on fish than coral though. Wrasses are starting to really grow on me. I havn't had many in the past. I have a sixline in the 22g and enjoying its behavior. If I set up the 10g as a DT, I am already thinking about getting one of the pygmy wrasse.

[Snow_Phoenix]

26 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

 

Don't feel bad, I can't afford colonies either lol I just buy the cheap frags. I mean they grow anyways...I do tend to budget more on fish than coral though. Wrasses are starting to really grow on me. I havn't had many in the past. I have a sixline in the 22g and enjoying its behavior. If I set up the 10g as a DT, I am already thinking about getting one of the pygmy wrasse.

The problem is there is a lot of elitism in the hobby where I live - for example, if you keep a SPS-dominant tank, you're automatically regarded as a 'Pro-Reefer' or something. 'You have that special bounce mushroom? Holy shit - you're awesome. You have Eagle-Eye Zoanthids. Oh, you couldn't afford anything better, is it?'

That attitude of 'reverence' to 'senior members' in the reefing community also deters a lot of new people from venturing into the hobby. I know of a few people who budget reef like I do but seldom post pics online because they're afraid of the lashback of just keeping 'normal, cheap' corals. We buy frags, and then we grow them into colonies over time. Then we frag them and either share them with our friends, or we turn our frags in to the store for credit. There seems to be an invisible division that divides people who do things differently (for example, running skimmerless, keeping nanos/picos, keeping unorthodox livestock (eg. mantis shrimp etc.) etc. and the people who stick to the standards of reefing and run things the 'normal' way. I'm sorry if this explanation sounds confusing, but seriously, this is one major problem my local reefing community experiences and refuses to acknowledge until today.

 

Anyway, I reef on my own and don't rely much on local groups anymore. Disagreements, infighting, the whole attitude of 'kow-towing' to more elite members of the hobby turned me off completely. (Plus, I'm like a socially awkward penguin anyway, so that probably counts against me too). I prefer learning, reading, researching and actively asking questions on international forums instead. Like here. 🙂

 

Oh, and I also love watching frags grow. Colonies are beautiful, but they need a lot of space and usually are ill-suited to a nano (depending on the size and dimensions of the tank you currently have). If I have a bigger tank, then yes, maybe buying an expensive colony (like a showpiece) *might be worth it. But for now, I'm just hoarding all the frags that's within my budget. 

 

P.S. I've never seen a pygmy wrasse up close in person either - but I've seen people on here keep them. They're gorgeous!