Fairy Wrasses Acclimating Horribly

[CRath]

Help! I have tried to add a pintail fairy wrasse twice as well as a red headed fairy wrasse to my aquarium and all three had very similar reactions after acclimation. I floated the bag for 10 minutes and then drip acclimated the fish for 30. I doubled the water volume in that time and the fish was swimming normally without breathing hard in the container. I added the fish to the tank using my hand and watched all three times time as the fish fish would begin breathing super hard and stick themselves in the back corner of the tank. The second pintail wrasse is doing way worse and instantly went ridged with its mouth stuck open. All of the fish were healthy at the store for weeks and had been eating well there. The first pintail even ate the night that I introduced it. The second pintail can still move its pectoral fins and is using them to do summersaults in the flow. I added two bang eyes to the tank around the same time as my first attempt and both were eating 10 minutes later which makes me suspect that its just a problem with the wrasses.

 

[BostonReefer300]

sorry about your troubles. Can you tell us your water parameters? Also, when you drip acclimated, how did you do it? Was the container you were using for that kept at the same temperature as the aquarium?

 

[blaxsun]

Wrasses are notoriously fickle.

 

[damsels are not mean]

Floating seems a waste of time if you're going to drip them in a bucket at presumably at room temperature for half an hour. That might be part of the problem.

 

[threebuoys]

Did you check the salinity of the water in the bags before you acclimated the fish? Particularly for mail orders, the shipping water is often around 1.19 or 1.20 specific gravity whille most reef tanks are maintained at 1.26. Raising salinity from 1.20 to 1.26 can be very stressful for sensitive fish. Part of the QT process now is to adjust salinity over several days if the specific gravity discrepancy is more than about .02.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Did you check the salinity of the water in the bags before you acclimated the fish? Particularly for mail orders, the shipping water is often around 1.19 or 1.20 specific gravity whille most reef tanks are maintained at 1.26. Raising salinity from 1.20 to 1.26 can be very stressful for sensitive fish. Part of the QT process now is to adjust salinity over several days if the specific gravity discrepancy is more than about .02.

My first thought as well. I've never seen them go rigid like that but have gotten a few bags in at super low salinity.

 

[CRath]

Did you check the salinity of the water in the bags before you acclimated the fish? Particularly for mail orders, the shipping water is often around 1.19 or 1.20 specific gravity whille most reef tanks are maintained at 1.26. Raising salinity from 1.20 to 1.26 can be very stressful for sensitive fish. Part of the QT process now is to adjust salinity over several days if the specific gravity discrepancy is more than about .02.

Salinity was 1.026 in my tank and the bag was 1.024. I took a water sample to my LFS and we did a water test. pH was fine as well as the salinity. Nitrates, nitrites, ammonia were also all fine.

 

[CRath]

Floating seems a waste of time if you're going to drip them in a bucket at presumably at room temperature for half an hour. That might be part of the problem.

When I drip I put the container in my sump where it is warm. The water felt the same temperature as the display when I introduced the wrasse.

 

[CRath]

sorry about your troubles. Can you tell us your water parameters? Also, when you drip acclimated, how did you do it? Was the container you were using for that kept at the same temperature as the aquarium?

Took the water to the LFS and measured pH, ammonia, nitrate, salinity. Ammonia was undetectable and both pH and salinity were close to what the store's were. My nitrates were in the normal 5-10 ppm range that my tank sits at.

pH: 7.9
Salinity: 1.026
Ammonia: <10 ppm (too little to read)

 

[CRath]

Wrasses are notoriously fickle.

Giving up on wrasses. They must hate me. I even scaped my rock with hecka hiding places because I knew I wanted a fairy wrasse.

 

[CRath]

sorry about your troubles. Can you tell us your water parameters? Also, when you drip acclimated, how did you do it? Was the container you were using for that kept at the same temperature as the aquarium?

When I drip acclimate I will normally float for 10 mins. I add the fish+water to a 2L container until about 1/4 full and will drip for 30 mins until the container is between 1/2 to 3/4 full. The container sits inside my stand so that it can stay warm. After that I will use my hand to put the fish in the tank. today was the first time I tried turning the lights off after seeing the fish struggle in the hopes that some stress could be mitigated.

 

[CRath]

If the file is working this is the video I took literally 1 minute after adding the fish. I wanted to make sure I had something to show the lFS. Pardon my roommate's language.

 

[Tamberav]

These fish are very skittish. Looks like it could be a spinal injury.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Next time why not add an air stone to your bag as soon as you get it home. Then time is on your side as you add tank water to your bag at a much slower rate. Also periodically remove ‘ammonia’ water from the bag and exchange it for clean RODI of the salinity level where you are in the process. With air, and ammonia being held in check, this could be over the course of a couple of days (theoretically).

 

[BostonReefer300]

When I drip acclimate I will normally float for 10 mins. I add the fish+water to a 2L container until about 1/4 full and will drip for 30 mins until the container is between 1/2 to 3/4 full. The container sits inside my stand so that it can stay warm. After that I will use my hand to put the fish in the tank. tod.ay was the first time I tried turning the lights off after seeing the fish struggle in the hopes that some stress could be mitigated.

That fish definitely doesn't look ok. If he was fine at the store and while just floating in the bag during temperature acclimation, then something is likely going wrong with your acclimation process (assuming you have other healthy, happy fish in your DT which would rule out something weird going on in there.).
For fish that you get locally and get home within an hour or so, you don't have to worry too much about ammonia build-up. For fish that are shipped, you do have to worry about that more but that's not your situation as I understand.
For sensitive fish (and I personally think fairy wrasses are sensitive), drip acclimation is usually best. After floating the bag for 30 minutes to temp acclimate, I gently pour the water and fish into styrofoam container. Then I start a medium-fast drip from my DT (2-3 drops/second). I let this double the water volume over about 20 minutes. I make sure to stir the water gently (actually, I use a tiny powerhead I have just for this). Then I remove half the water and continue the medium-fast drip over about 20 min until the water volume doubles again. I remove half the water again, turn up the drip to fast (very rapid drips, but not a stream) and let that go for another 20 minutes during which time the water volume gets to almost 3X the original amount. Then I put the fish into the DT. The use of styrofoam plus a fairly rapid drip rate makes sure the temp in the acclimation bath is the same as the DT.
I've used this acclimation method for dozens of sensitive fish and it's never failed. Hope it helps you out. Fairy wrasses are beautiful, so it would be too bad if you gave up on them (although they are expensive little guys for sure)! HTH

 

[Mhuq1197]

Help! I have tried to add a pintail fairy wrasse twice as well as a red headed fairy wrasse to my aquarium and all three had very similar reactions after acclimation. I floated the bag for 10 minutes and then drip acclimated the fish for 30. I doubled the water volume in that time and the fish was swimming normally without breathing hard in the container. I added the fish to the tank using my hand and watched all three times time as the fish fish would begin breathing super hard and stick themselves in the back corner of the tank. The second pintail wrasse is doing way worse and instantly went ridged with its mouth stuck open. All of the fish were healthy at the store for weeks and had been eating well there. The first pintail even ate the night that I introduced it. The second pintail can still move its pectoral fins and is using them to do summersaults in the flow. I added two bang eyes to the tank around the same time as my first attempt and both were eating 10 minutes later which makes me suspect that its just a problem with the wrasses.

Just my experience, red fairy wrasse seems to struggle, 6line wrasse seems to do better. Again, just my experience.