Blue star leopard wrasse found dead stuck in rocks

[th365thli]

At this point, I would looking at the lfs as the possible cause even if they're supplying fish that eat and swim around. That's not entirely indicative of overall fish health and sometimes you'll get brand new fish that are more susceptible to shock after something as trivial as a water change if the temp or PH of the new water differs enough from your display's parameters. You just never know if they have some weird bacteria that medicated QT would have taken care of. Also, fish do act differently when we're not hovering around the display. I've added fish and watch them swim around perfectly fine. In the morning, that same fish would be in the top corner of the display with ripped fins.

All of what you said makes sense. I do have an acclimation box, a good one (elite aquatics). I didn't want to use it since I figured it wanted to be in the sand.

I think I'll wait and stew before I add another one. It was a gorgeous fish. But I don't want the same issue happening again. Most what I read is that they're difficult because of eating habits. Once you get them on frozen food they're just as hardy as other wrasses

 

[SaltyT]

You mentioned that you have egg crate under the sand. Did the leopard wedge its head into the egg crate beneath the rock?

 

[th365thli]

You mentioned that you have egg crate under the sand. Did the leopard wedge its head into the egg crate beneath the rock?

When I say egg crate it was more like a divider, in that the "cells" or mesh were smaller. It's possible it could've gotten a fin stuck but not it's head. However perhaps it got wedged between the crate and rock

 

[th365thli]

Minor update that hopefully is enough for closure.

I talked to the local LFS, (great group of people), and the owner agreed it didn't make sense for a fish that was active, eating, and otherwise healthy to suddenly die. Especially if the other fish, including the flame angel I got at the same time were doing great. He then took a long thin plastic pipe and moved the sand at the base of a rock. He told me, there's a chance my rock work was not super solid, and that even a slight movement of sand can cause rock to shift. Even if it shifts a tiny amount, it could've trapped that poor wrasse. I theorize when it burrowed under the rock it caused a small shift. This perhaps explains why it was stuck head first, as the head is the thickest part of the body, and why it was so difficult to remove it.

So of course the first thing I did when I got home was to take my long feeding pipette and disturb the sand at the bottom of my rock work. I also did some minor re-scaping to make sure it was rock solid on the bottom beneath the sand. Caused a big cloud and probably ticked off my fish, but worth doing for peace of mind.