Naoko Wrasse Struggling

[wwarby]

I've had a naoko wrasse in QT for a couple of weeks (observation only, no medication) and it had been doing fine until yesterday morning when it started struggling. It's like it's being blown around by the (weak) current in the water, doing somersaults, sometimes landing upside down on the sand for a few seconds. I fully expected to wake up to a dead fish this morning but it's hanging on in there. At the same time I noticed a white mark on it's head, which looks like an injury to me (photograph below). The white mark is less noticeable this morning.

I went into my LFS and they said it didn't look like disease, and there wasn't much I could do besides keep feeding and cross my fingers. It didn't eat yesterday afternoon or this morning so I'm sure it's not in a good way. I'm pretty sure it's not aggression - the only tank mates are a small tomini tang, a peppermint shrimp and a couple of emerald crabs and some snails. I've not seen any aggression at all from the tang. Pretty sure it's not water chemistry either - nitrates are around 10-15, PO4 around 0.03, salinity 1.025 and the tang seems happy. I don't like watching helplessly as it tumbles around in the tank - is there anything I can or should be doing to give it a fighting chance?

Short video: https://www.youtube.com/KN66JhJOLs0

 

[KING KONG]

I've had a naoko wrasse in QT for a couple of weeks (observation only, no medication) and it had been doing fine until yesterday morning when it started struggling. It's like it's being blown around by the (weak) current in the water, doing somersaults, sometimes landing upside down on the sand for a few seconds. I fully expected to wake up to a dead fish this morning but it's hanging on in there. At the same time I noticed a white mark on it's head, which looks like an injury to me (photograph below). The white mark is less noticeable this morning.

I went into my LFS and they said it didn't look like disease, and there wasn't much I could do besides keep feeding and cross my fingers. It didn't eat yesterday afternoon or this morning so I'm sure it's not in a good way. I'm pretty sure it's not aggression - the only tank mates are a small tomini tang, a peppermint shrimp and a couple of emerald crabs and some snails. I've not seen any aggression at all from the tang. Pretty sure it's not water chemistry either - nitrates are around 10-15, PO4 around 0.03, salinity 1.025 and the tang seems happy. I don't like watching helplessly as it tumbles around in the tank - is there anything I can or should be doing to give it a fighting chance?

Short video: https://www.youtube.com/KN66JhJOLs0

Unable to watch vedio. This might help

Fish swims vertically with its tail down. Sometimes the fish just lays on the bottom of the tank; sometimes swims in a swirling motion. Most believe spinal injuries are caused when the fish jumps and hits a hard object (or swims/rams into one.) However, there is some evidence that internal flagellates and/or harmful bacteria which has migrated to the spinal canal may be contributing factors to spinal injuries. Wrasses seem most prone to spinal injuries, especially fairy & flasher wrasses.

Treatment: The injury can heal if the damage is not too severe. Sadly, this is most often not the case. Dosing Metronidazole (for internal flagellates) + Erythromycin or Enrofloxacin (for bacteria) may help. If the fish is still eating, food soak metronidazole + neomycin as well.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Unknown Neurological Wrasse Disease (UNWD)

Unknown Neurological Wrasse disease (UNWD) There is a disease that afflicts newly acquired wrasses, usually Cirrhilabrus fairy wrasses or flasher wrasses, Pseudocheilinus, but occasionally other species as well. The gross visual symptoms are always the same; the fish shows a rapid onset of...

www.reef2reef.com

Check out the thread there, there's a video also. It sounds like you're explaining what they're talking about. Hopefully not. Good luck and hopefully your fish recovers!

 

[KING KONG]

Unable to watch vedio. This might help
Fish swims vertically with its tail down. Sometimes the fish just lays on the bottom of the tank; sometimes swims in a swirling motion. Most believe spinal injuries are caused when the fish jumps and hits a hard object (or swims/rams into one.) However, there is some evidence that internal flagellates and/or harmful bacteria which has migrated to the spinal canal may be contributing factors to spinal injuries. Wrasses seem most prone to spinal injuries, especially fairy & flasher wrasses.

Treatment: The injury can heal if the damage is not too severe. Sadly, this is most often not the case. Dosing Metronidazole (for internal flagellates) + Erythromycin or Enrofloxacin (for bacteria) may help. If the fish is still eating, food soak metronidazole + neomycin as well.

Still let see what experts say

 

[wwarby]

Apologies for the bad video link, here's a good one:



Thanks very much for the information provided - given the head injury and based on what you've said @KING KONG, I'm inclined to think this is spinal damage - it's in a small QT tank at the moment with a hard plastic lid - I suspect it's jumped up and hit it's head hard on the tank lid and damaged its spine. It does seem to spiral consistently to it's left which I think lends credibility to that diagnosis.

It's not really trying to eat so I suspect it's not long for this world. It's been hanging on in there for 36 hours now - I'm not sure whether I should euthanise it. I don't want to kill it if it's got a chance of survival but equally I don't want to just sit around watching it suffer and starve to death.

 

[KING KONG]

Apologies for the bad video link, here's a good one:



Thanks very much for the information provided - given the head injury and based on what you've said @KING KONG, I'm inclined to think this is spinal damage - it's in a small QT tank at the moment with a hard plastic lid - I suspect it's jumped up and hit it's head hard on the tank lid and damaged its spine. It does seem to spiral consistently to it's left which I think lends credibility to that diagnosis.

It's not really trying to eat so I suspect it's not long for this world. It's been hanging on in there for 36 hours now - I'm not sure whether I should euthanise it. I don't want to kill it if it's got a chance of survival but equally I don't want to just sit around watching it suffer and starve to death.

Actually you can't do anything about it. This disease has no cure yet. Still try to leave food near it. In vedio I can see that now tang has also started attacking it which is a problem

 

[wwarby]

Actually you can't do anything about it. This disease has no cure yet. Still try to leave food near it. In vedio I can see that now tang has also started attacking it which is a problem

From what I saw in the thread about this disease, I thought Jay was saying that if you can see an injury and the symptoms came on overnight then it’s more likely to be a case of spinal injury than the neurological disease. That said, I did see this weird swimming behaviour a few days prior so perhaps it is the disease after all.

I think the video I took distorted the perspective a little and the tang gets a little skittish when I’m that close to the tank. I don’t think it’s actually attacking the wrasse - at least I haven’t seen that myself yet.

The wrasse is still alive, still swimming in circles and still not eating. It seems to want to eat but is maybe unable to coordinate its movement to catch the food. I’ll just keep trying to feed it but I expect this will prove fatal sooner or later.

 

[KING KONG]

From what I saw in the thread about this disease, I thought Jay was saying that if you can see an injury and the symptoms came on overnight then it’s more likely to be a case of spinal injury than the neurological disease. That said, I did see this weird swimming behaviour a few days prior so perhaps it is the disease after all.

I think the video I took distorted the perspective a little and the tang gets a little skittish when I’m that close to the tank. I don’t think it’s actually attacking the wrasse - at least I haven’t seen that myself yet.

The wrasse is still alive, still swimming in circles and still not eating. It seems to want to eat but is maybe unable to coordinate its movement to catch the food. I’ll just keep trying to feed it but I expect this will prove fatal sooner or later.

Actually there are some techniques from that u can force feed it takes a lot of courage. Still you can refer this

Tube / Force Feeding Fish

This article describes methods of tube-feeding and force-feeding fish

www.reef2reef.com

 

[wwarby]

Yeah - thanks for the suggestion but I don’t think I want to take that kind of intervention. I can see the case for it if your just dropped $2,000 on a rare fish that’s just refusing to ear for no obvious reason but this is a $50 common wrasse which looks extremely unlikely to survive anyway because it has either a disease or spinal injury. I’m just waiting for it to die at this point - it hasn’t eaten in days. I would euthanise it if I was 100% sure it won’t recover but I’m not quite there yet because it’s behaviour doesn’t seem to be getting any worse.

 

[i cant think]

This is a case of either UNWD or a Spinal Injury. Neither really have a solution and whilst you say they’re uncommon wrasses, this wrasse took me 4-5 years to find my first one. It then took me another year to find my second one (My LFS then was an LFS that focused on uncommon-rare fish).

 

[wwarby]

Perhaps it’s rarer than I thought - I’m sure I’ve seen it at least twice in the last six months at my LFS though. I’m in the U.K. so sometimes fish are easier to get hold of here than the US and vice versa. I can’t see anywhere online in the U.K. that has one in stock by my LFS didn’t seem to think it’d be difficult to get me another one. I guess there’s a small chance I won’t have to, but I’m not optimistic.

 

[i cant think]

Perhaps it’s rarer than I thought - I’m sure I’ve seen it at least twice in the last six months at my LFS though. I’m in the U.K. so sometimes fish are easier to get hold of here than the US and vice versa. I can’t see anywhere online in the U.K. that has one in stock by my LFS didn’t seem to think it’d be difficult to get me another one. I guess there’s a small chance I won’t have to, but I’m not optimistic.

I’m in the UK as well - My old LFS was Reef Dreams and they only had 2 in the span of about 1.5-2 years.
Over here it seems some LFS’s tend to mix up the Naokoae with similar species in the same complex.

 

[wwarby]

I put this fish out of its misery this morning. It hardly eaten in a week and it was clearly running out of energy, spending much of its time lying upside down on the sand bed. Very sad outcome but it was pretty obvious it was never going to recover - it just couldn’t swim in a straight line or orient itself to catch food. Fingers crossed my LFS is able to source another for me.