What's Wrong With My Wrasse?

[4FordFamily]

@4FordFamily thank you for the article! Very in-depth and full of info.

I have a small McCoskers that went through a full humblefish QT with copper. For the last two weeks it’s been fine. Today it started exhibiting the “deaths door” behavior swimming wise. It appears to only see out of its left eye and favors leftward swimming. It was fine this morning and began the odd swimming this afternoon. Often in a corkscrew type fashion. It still eats but is missing food it darts toward. Could this be either spinal or copper related? Do you see these ever resolve?

Unfortunately, it could be a number of things. It could be copper related but I’ve seen this in wrasse that weren’t treated. It may in fact be a spinal issue. I’ve seen this behavior before for a multitude of reasons that I’ve never been certain of

This is a rare one where we will be little help, unfortunately. I hope your wrasse makes it.

 

[zalick]

Unfortunately, it could be a number of things. It could be copper related but I’ve seen this in wrasse that weren’t treated. It may in fact be a spinal issue. I’ve seen this behavior before for a multitude of reasons that I’ve never been certain of

This is a rare one where we will be little help, unfortunately. I hope your wrasse makes it.

Sadly it appears to be approaching a “locked in” state to use a human term. Almost totally paralyzed but it’s eyes. It’s lying on the sand with eyes movement and a slight amount of muscle movement. No rapid breathing or other signs of injury. But just paralyzed appearing. It can use its ventral fins but nothing else.

incredibly rapid onset and deterioration. 8hrs from normal to paralyzed.

I’ll attempt to euthanize it tonight if I can retrieve it.

 

[zalick]

It appears to have slightly more movement than last night but it’s not going to make it. This is with zero flow. I’ll be euthanizing today.
Couldn’t get the video to upload here.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

It appears to have slightly more movement than last night but it’s not going to make it. This is with zero flow. I’ll be euthanizing today.
Couldn’t get the video to upload here.

Very sorry. That’s the most severe case of this I’ve seen.
Jay

 

[zalick]

Very sorry. That’s the most severe case of this I’ve seen.
Jay

He was eating a little when food right in front of mouth so I waited the day to see if he miraculously improved. Sadly as expected he did not.

I did observe a slightly swollen right eye at the top of the eye. It looks dark like it may be blood behind the eye. I don’t have any syringes on hand or else I’d try to extract some fluid.

I’ll be uethanizing now.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Sorry - the eye issue could be mechanical damage from it swimming and hitting things perhaps?

Jay

 

[SaltwaterNo0b]

Hi there, we own a malanarus wrasse, first few months of owning her and up until recently, like a month ago (give or take by a little), she was an active swimmer and had a regular sleep routine & would bury herself like all wrasses do. She has and still does quite fine around her other tank mates, she would eat a lot of frozen mysis during feeding times, that’s what we normally feed all our fishes. We would also sometimes mix other frozen food with the mysis like fish eggs ect. She would still eat pretty regularly and up until a month or so she started acting strange, not herself.

She would start swimming to the top and around the rim/in the corner of tank. I’d catch her swimming back and forth from one end to another, with her mouth facing up by the bubbles, almost like poking it out of the water. Automatically you think it’s an air issue, but all other fishes are breathing fine, no ones gasping for air at all. You see constant small bubbles circulating the tank on a regular basis. We then started to think maybe she’s feeding on copepods because she hasn’t become skinny and still looks healthy. No visible injuries, no parasite's that we can notice on her, we did have one bad light that went out every couple hours but since then it’s been replaced. Reason I bring that issue up is because the day that it first went out, I went to lay down for a nap, woke up to the tank light off.

Due to our light doing that I noticed she had buried her self during the day. She has kept that habit up and will bury herself the best she can, sometimes half her body would stick out and not be covered. That light incident happened about 4 days ago now, since she has been seen and not seen for hours at a time. Today the new light came in mail and we immediately replaced it, I sat down just minutes ago and was watching her.

She has been laying down at the bottom of tank periodically swimming back and forth, sometimes even standing straight up like a human in the corner. I noticed as I looked closer she isn’t skiddish and lets us get real close, close enough to take a pic and video. I noticed a slight blurr/cloud like mark on one of her eyes, she also looked like she had a bubble like mark under her mouth. She appears to look lethargic but we don’t know and it’s worrying us. This odd behavior has gone on long enough and we thought she would snap out of it, please help? Of course we care for our fishes and to see any of them act out of the ordinary is worrisome. Any ideas?? Also my husband checks his water and all that quite frequently, I will post water info here soon.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi there, we own a malanarus wrasse, first few months of owning her and up until recently, like a month ago (give or take by a little), she was an active swimmer and had a regular sleep routine & would bury herself like all wrasses do. She has and still does quite fine around her other tank mates, she would eat a lot of frozen mysis during feeding times, that’s what we normally feed all our fishes. We would also sometimes mix other frozen food with the mysis like fish eggs ect. She would still eat pretty regularly and up until a month or so she started acting strange, not herself.

She would start swimming to the top and around the rim/in the corner of tank. I’d catch her swimming back and forth from one end to another, with her mouth facing up by the bubbles, almost like poking it out of the water. Automatically you think it’s an air issue, but all other fishes are breathing fine, no ones gasping for air at all. You see constant small bubbles circulating the tank on a regular basis. We then started to think maybe she’s feeding on copepods because she hasn’t become skinny and still looks healthy. No visible injuries, no parasite's that we can notice on her, we did have one bad light that went out every couple hours but since then it’s been replaced. Reason I bring that issue up is because the day that it first went out, I went to lay down for a nap, woke up to the tank light off.

Due to our light doing that I noticed she had buried her self during the day. She has kept that habit up and will bury herself the best she can, sometimes half her body would stick out and not be covered. That light incident happened about 4 days ago now, since she has been seen and not seen for hours at a time. Today the new light came in mail and we immediately replaced it, I sat down just minutes ago and was watching her.

She has been laying down at the bottom of tank periodically swimming back and forth, sometimes even standing straight up like a human in the corner. I noticed as I looked closer she isn’t skiddish and lets us get real close, close enough to take a pic and video. I noticed a slight blurr/cloud like mark on one of her eyes, she also looked like she had a bubble like mark under her mouth. She appears to look lethargic but we don’t know and it’s worrying us. This odd behavior has gone on long enough and we thought she would snap out of it, please help? Of course we care for our fishes and to see any of them act out of the ordinary is worrisome. Any ideas?? Also my husband checks his water and all that quite frequently, I will post water info here soon.

Its hard to pinpoint the fish based on the dark lighting heavy in blue and the substance on the glass. Please re-do under white lighting only and scrape glass

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi there, we own a malanarus wrasse, first few months of owning her and up until recently, like a month ago (give or take by a little), she was an active swimmer and had a regular sleep routine & would bury herself like all wrasses do. She has and still does quite fine around her other tank mates, she would eat a lot of frozen mysis during feeding times, that’s what we normally feed all our fishes. We would also sometimes mix other frozen food with the mysis like fish eggs ect. She would still eat pretty regularly and up until a month or so she started acting strange, not herself.

She would start swimming to the top and around the rim/in the corner of tank. I’d catch her swimming back and forth from one end to another, with her mouth facing up by the bubbles, almost like poking it out of the water. Automatically you think it’s an air issue, but all other fishes are breathing fine, no ones gasping for air at all. You see constant small bubbles circulating the tank on a regular basis. We then started to think maybe she’s feeding on copepods because she hasn’t become skinny and still looks healthy. No visible injuries, no parasite's that we can notice on her, we did have one bad light that went out every couple hours but since then it’s been replaced. Reason I bring that issue up is because the day that it first went out, I went to lay down for a nap, woke up to the tank light off.

Due to our light doing that I noticed she had buried her self during the day. She has kept that habit up and will bury herself the best she can, sometimes half her body would stick out and not be covered. That light incident happened about 4 days ago now, since she has been seen and not seen for hours at a time. Today the new light came in mail and we immediately replaced it, I sat down just minutes ago and was watching her.

She has been laying down at the bottom of tank periodically swimming back and forth, sometimes even standing straight up like a human in the corner. I noticed as I looked closer she isn’t skiddish and lets us get real close, close enough to take a pic and video. I noticed a slight blurr/cloud like mark on one of her eyes, she also looked like she had a bubble like mark under her mouth. She appears to look lethargic but we don’t know and it’s worrying us. This odd behavior has gone on long enough and we thought she would snap out of it, please help? Of course we care for our fishes and to see any of them act out of the ordinary is worrisome. Any ideas?? Also my husband checks his water and all that quite frequently, I will post water info here soon.

Also, siphon and loosen the sand bed. It may be too packed and too coarse for it

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi there, we own a malanarus wrasse, first few months of owning her and up until recently, like a month ago (give or take by a little), she was an active swimmer and had a regular sleep routine & would bury herself like all wrasses do. She has and still does quite fine around her other tank mates, she would eat a lot of frozen mysis during feeding times, that’s what we normally feed all our fishes. We would also sometimes mix other frozen food with the mysis like fish eggs ect. She would still eat pretty regularly and up until a month or so she started acting strange, not herself.

She would start swimming to the top and around the rim/in the corner of tank. I’d catch her swimming back and forth from one end to another, with her mouth facing up by the bubbles, almost like poking it out of the water. Automatically you think it’s an air issue, but all other fishes are breathing fine, no ones gasping for air at all. You see constant small bubbles circulating the tank on a regular basis. We then started to think maybe she’s feeding on copepods because she hasn’t become skinny and still looks healthy. No visible injuries, no parasite's that we can notice on her, we did have one bad light that went out every couple hours but since then it’s been replaced. Reason I bring that issue up is because the day that it first went out, I went to lay down for a nap, woke up to the tank light off.

Due to our light doing that I noticed she had buried her self during the day. She has kept that habit up and will bury herself the best she can, sometimes half her body would stick out and not be covered. That light incident happened about 4 days ago now, since she has been seen and not seen for hours at a time. Today the new light came in mail and we immediately replaced it, I sat down just minutes ago and was watching her.

She has been laying down at the bottom of tank periodically swimming back and forth, sometimes even standing straight up like a human in the corner. I noticed as I looked closer she isn’t skiddish and lets us get real close, close enough to take a pic and video. I noticed a slight blurr/cloud like mark on one of her eyes, she also looked like she had a bubble like mark under her mouth. She appears to look lethargic but we don’t know and it’s worrying us. This odd behavior has gone on long enough and we thought she would snap out of it, please help? Of course we care for our fishes and to see any of them act out of the ordinary is worrisome. Any ideas?? Also my husband checks his water and all that quite frequently, I will post water info here soon.

All I can see is that the tank has a film on it. That can reduce gas exchange. Wrasses have a high dissolved oxygen requirement. I would add an air stone and skim the water’s surface to see if that helps.