Dead Wrasse

[vieiras]

My male flasher wrasses died today after being in my tank for a week. The female we bought paired with him went missing a few days before. All of the other fish in the tank are fine and water parameters are a bit low (slowly dosing to increase those) but not enough to harm the fish. What could have happened. Now both wrasses are dead.

Calcium 400ppm
Alkalinity 7 dkh
Nitrates 5
Salinity 35ppm

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Difficult to see for sure, but there seems to be an area of disrupted scales from the fish’s vent to its tail. New wrasse, so could be Uronema.

Jay

 

[cshouston]

I have been completely unable to keep fairy or flasher wrasses alive for longer than a week. In my case, I’m fairly certain they crashed into glass or rockwork and injured their spines based on their symptoms before they succumbed. Did you notice any strange behavior before it died? What else is in the tank? Do you have a glass top? Were they quarantined before going into your tank?

 

[vieiras]

Fish were all quarantined medically before being put into the tank. We purchase the fish from an amazing fish store that actually takes care of the fish tanks in the Smithsonian. The fish hid the day we put them in then came out the following morning as expected. The female went missing two days later. The male was fine and swimming around happily until I found it dead today 4 days after the female went missing. The fish have been fed a combination of pe pellets and frozen emerald entree. Fish are well fed. The other fish I have are a fox face, royal gramma, yellow watchman and shrimp pair, two clownish (one of the clownfish I bought with the flasher wrasses) the other fish I have had for a month with no issues. Not sure what to do. This is the third wrasse I have lost. They are not cheap either at $80 a fish.

 

[vieiras]

I also have 100 gallon display with a mesh screen top.

 

[cshouston]

One thing jumped out at me: royal gramma. They can be surprisingly territorial and aggressive. I don’t think anyone will be able to give you a definite answer without a necropsy.

 

[vieiras]

One thing jumped out at me: royal gramma. They can be surprisingly territorial and aggressive. I don’t think anyone will be able to give you a definite answer without a necropsy.

Thank you. I will probably be left in the dark. Since I did not find the fish within ten minutes of death, it is too late to conduct a necropsy.

 

[Peng1606]

I agree with Jay.. could be uronema. Have had real issues with uronema over last year and half.
Royal grammas although can be aggressive usually don’t go out of their way to kill any fish. They will act up if a fish is close to their favorite hiding spot but then stay around their hole once the other fish swims away. I have 6 royal grammas in my tank and they generally don’t bother other fish away from their hiding spots....

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thank you. I will probably be left in the dark. Since I did not find the fish within ten minutes of death, it is too late to conduct a necropsy.

While necropsies closer to the time of death are best, I routinely get meaningful information from them for a couple of hours post-mortem. I'm not sure where that 10 minute time frame came from. Specifically, that lesion I mentioned above - you would be able to isolate Uronema from it for at least 12 hours post-mortem, probably 24.

Jay