I purchased a beautiful Melanarus Wrasse almost two months ago and from day one he has been an amazing fish. Super active, healthy, ate like a pig. He got along great with the rest of the fish when I added him to the main display and all was copasetic until this past Tuesday.
When I went to feed that day, I noticed that he was swimming vertically; his head was pointed up and his backend was down which appeared to be dead weight. He was essentially performing pirouettes to move about. I did some frantic research on here and based on what I read, he has a spinal injury. I isolated him and he continues to eat, but his condition still appears to deteriorate day by day. He's now taken to spending most of the day lying on the bottom of the tank. He'll stir if I get too close, but I'm just starting to lose hope. I read many with these injuries typically don't make it and I'm rather heart broken as this was the fish I was looking forward to getting more than any other.
I eventually want to replace him, but this appears to be so common with wrasses that I've started to grow cynical about the prospect of having another. The top of my tank is covered with a glass canopy so the only way I can see actively trying to prevent this in the future is to switch to netting. Two days before he started acting this way, I did add some Frogspawn for the first time to the tank and he did seem particularly interested in it although based on what I've read there is probably no correlation, but that was the only recent change.
Any thoughts? Just feeling really bummed.
When I went to feed that day, I noticed that he was swimming vertically; his head was pointed up and his backend was down which appeared to be dead weight. He was essentially performing pirouettes to move about. I did some frantic research on here and based on what I read, he has a spinal injury. I isolated him and he continues to eat, but his condition still appears to deteriorate day by day. He's now taken to spending most of the day lying on the bottom of the tank. He'll stir if I get too close, but I'm just starting to lose hope. I read many with these injuries typically don't make it and I'm rather heart broken as this was the fish I was looking forward to getting more than any other.
I eventually want to replace him, but this appears to be so common with wrasses that I've started to grow cynical about the prospect of having another. The top of my tank is covered with a glass canopy so the only way I can see actively trying to prevent this in the future is to switch to netting. Two days before he started acting this way, I did add some Frogspawn for the first time to the tank and he did seem particularly interested in it although based on what I've read there is probably no correlation, but that was the only recent change.
Any thoughts? Just feeling really bummed.
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