Leopard Wrasse

Care Summary

The Leopard Wrasse is one of the most beautiful wrasses in the hobby but also one of the most demanding; it requires a mature sand bed with thriving infauna to forage in or it will slowly starve. A 6-month-old or older tank with a deep, fine sand bed and active copepod and amphipod populations is the prerequisite; do not add a Leopard Wrasse to a new or underpopulated tank. Feed frozen mysis and meaty foods twice daily, but understand that in its natural behavior it spends 90% of the day picking small prey from the substrate; supplemental feeding alone is not enough. It sleeps buried in the sand at night and may disappear for 1-2 days when first added to a new tank; this is normal, but if it stays buried for longer than 3 days something is wrong.