Sudden Death. By Aquarium Lid???

ThunderGoose · Aug 17, 2018

After the fishes' dinner tonight I was sitting in the living room, reading, when I heard a loud splash, bang, splash.

I looked up and saw my Carpenter's wrasse struggling. By the time I got to the tank he was laying on the sand. I picked him up and put him in the current from a powerhead to make sure water was flowing over his gills, figuring he was stunned.

Nope. He never started breathing again.

Water parameters all good (nitrates and phosphate low but detectable, alk around 7.5). I actually did a 8% water change earlier today. No signs of anything wrong in him or the other fish before the incident. No signs in the other fish since the incident.

So I pulled out my fancy dissection kit and did a necropsy. Not easy on a 2.5 inch fish. I looked at everything under the microscope. Liver - good, air bladder - good, intestines - good, heart - good. No signs of external or internal parasites.

What I did find was a little blood in the abdominal cavity. I think he ruptured something internal and bled out.

The questions that remain unanswered include: what caused him to jump? Was he startled? Did he really hit the lid that hard? (and it's stretched nylon mesh so is it really hard enough to hurt him?) OR did he get struck by the mantis shrimp that I haven't been able to catch? The mantis that hasn't even killed off much of my CUC? The one that I almost never see?

I have a few low quality pictures of the liver, swim bladder and the blood in the body cavity (plus an external shot) if anyone is morbid and wants to look. I didn't get too many photos because I was digiscoping through my microscope while trying to hold the fish in position. Just a little awkward.

Oh, and I've had him for 5 months and he went through a medicated QT and was eating great and showing no symptoms before tonight.

Not a happy way to end the week.

HotRocks · Aug 17, 2018

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Something probably spooked the fish. Wrasse are like rockets when they dart. Internal injury from slamming the side of the tank of any hard portion of the lid. They commonly get spinal injuries from darting into things. It sounds like he hit something pretty hard.

I have a bunch of Wrasse in QT right now and they dart, jump out of the tank when I'm working on it etc. I have a supemale pin tail that has made it out of the tank a few times while feeding and doing maintenance.

ThunderGoose · Aug 17, 2018

HotRocks said:
Sorry to hear about your loss.

Something probably spooked the fish. Wrasse are like rockets when they dart. Internal injury from slamming the side of the tank of any hard portion of the lid. They commonly get spinal injuries from darting into things. It sounds like he hit something pretty hard.

I have a bunch of Wrasse in QT right now and they dart, jump out of the tank when I'm working on it etc. I have a supemale pin tail that has made it out of the tank a few times while feeding and doing maintenance.

Thanks. I've seen him spook a few times but never saw any sign of injury before. While I'm unhappy about it I'm glad it's not anything contagious.

Humblefish · Aug 17, 2018

Sounds like he hit your lid hard and suffered a fatal injury. Happens with fairy & flasher wrasses a lot. They jump or ram into a rock while swimming like a maniac, and suffer a spinal or some other sort of injury.

cancun · Aug 18, 2018

ThunderGoose said:
After the fishes' dinner tonight I was sitting in the living room, reading, when I heard a loud splash, bang, splash.

I looked up and saw my Carpenter's wrasse struggling. By the time I got to the tank he was laying on the sand. I picked him up and put him in the current from a powerhead to make sure water was flowing over his gills, figuring he was stunned.

Nope. He never started breathing again.

Water parameters all good (nitrates and phosphate low but detectable, alk around 7.5). I actually did a 8% water change earlier today. No signs of anything wrong in him or the other fish before the incident. No signs in the other fish since the incident.

So I pulled out my fancy dissection kit and did a necropsy. Not easy on a 2.5 inch fish. I looked at everything under the microscope. Liver - good, air bladder - good, intestines - good, heart - good. No signs of external or internal parasites.

What I did find was a little blood in the abdominal cavity. I think he ruptured something internal and bled out.

The questions that remain unanswered include: what caused him to jump? Was he startled? Did he really hit the lid that hard? (and it's stretched nylon mesh so is it really hard enough to hurt him?) OR did he get struck by the mantis shrimp that I haven't been able to catch? The mantis that hasn't even killed off much of my CUC? The one that I almost never see?

I have a few low quality pictures of the liver, swim bladder and the blood in the body cavity (plus an external shot) if anyone is morbid and wants to look. I didn't get too many photos because I was digiscoping through my microscope while trying to hold the fish in position. Just a little awkward.

Oh, and I've had him for 5 months and he went through a medicated QT and was eating great and showing no symptoms before tonight.

Not a happy way to end the week.

Sorry for the loss of your Wrasse.

I agree that he must have hit the lid too hard. I also have a plastic mesh lid too, and I recently lost my yellow Wrasse that I had for years....he got spooked and jumped hard into the top, and just floated to the bottom. He was dead within a matter of a minute or so.