Exquisite Fairy Wrasse Struggling

Gold1 · Feb 2, 2024

I've had my exquisite fairy wrasse for about 6 months now without any issues. He has his cave he likes to hide in to sleep at night. Yesterday I noticed he didn't really want to come out during feeding. He grabbed things that floated by but stayed in the cave mostly. Today I noticed he was still there and tried to ensure food got to him. He came out and I noticed he is having a hard time swimming. Mainly seems like he's using his pectoral fins but not his tail fin. He's staying low to the base of the tank and able to swim horizontally that wat or swimming straight up and down vertical with his head up. He seems to be getting splotchy gray in his color too which I haven't noticed before. He doesn't seem to be having a hard time breathing or anything like that. All the other threads I've read that seem similar make me think a spinal injury but thought I'd still ask for help on next steps.

Everyone else in the tank is doing fine. Normally it's very little aggression in the tank with the clowns basically telling everyone to stay away from their spot but I'm noticing that the pixie hawkfish and coral beauty angelfish are now getting in his face when he struggle swims past them when in the past they couldn't care about him at all.

Thoughts?

vetteguy53081 · Feb 2, 2024

Gold1 said:
I've had my exquisite fairy wrasse for about 6 months now without any issues. He has his cave he likes to hide in to sleep at night. Yesterday I noticed he didn't really want to come out during feeding. He grabbed things that floated by but stayed in the cave mostly. Today I noticed he was still there and tried to ensure food got to him. He came out and I noticed he is having a hard time swimming. Mainly seems like he's using his pectoral fins but not his tail fin. He's staying low to the base of the tank and able to swim horizontally that wat or swimming straight up and down vertical with his head up. He seems to be getting splotchy gray in his color too which I haven't noticed before. He doesn't seem to be having a hard time breathing or anything like that. All the other threads I've read that seem similar make me think a spinal injury but thought I'd still ask for help on next steps.

Everyone else in the tank is doing fine. Normally it's very little aggression in the tank with the clowns basically telling everyone to stay away from their spot but I'm noticing that the pixie hawkfish and coral beauty angelfish are now getting in his face when he struggle swims past them when in the past they couldn't care about him at all.

Thoughts?

Pics are dark and best is a 20 second video under white lighting
Is fish breathing normal or labored

Gold1 · Feb 2, 2024

He didn't want to move and I didn't want to force him to but you can still see him and some of the gray splotches. This isn't his normal cave. I think it's just a place he could get to and feel safe.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 2, 2024

Gold1 said:
He didn't want to move and I didn't want to force him to but you can still see him and some of the gray splotches. This isn't his normal cave. I think it's just a place he could get to and feel safe.

Can you get video of the fish showing the swimming symptoms? All I can tell you from this video is that it is NOT breathing too fast. That rules out some issues, but won't tell us what the problem might be....

Jay

Gold1 · Feb 2, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
Can you get video of the fish showing the swimming symptoms? All I can tell you from this video is that it is NOT breathing too fast. That rules out some issues, but won't tell us what the problem might be....

Jay

I'll keep any eye out for it swimming but over the last 48 hours, it has been hovering in one spot for all but 3-5 minutes. It would turn in it's cave to look out different sides of it without really swimming. When I fed them this morning is when I saw the swimming struggles and then it settled in the location it is in now and has been there for the last 3 hours without much movement. While watching to see if I could catch him swimming, the tang pushed on it using it's tail fin and the wrasse didn't move. The wrasse is usually one of my most active fish outside the angelfish.

MnFish1 · Feb 2, 2024

I can't see the video so will let the others answer - but a quick question - is the tail as ragged as it looks in a couple of the first pictures - or it might just be the picture

Jay Hemdal · Feb 2, 2024

Gold1 said:
I'll keep any eye out for it swimming but over the last 48 hours, it has been hovering in one spot for all but 3-5 minutes. It would turn in it's cave to look out different sides of it without really swimming. When I fed them this morning is when I saw the swimming struggles and then it settled in the location it is in now and has been there for the last 3 hours without much movement. While watching to see if I could catch him swimming, the tang pushed on it using it's tail fin and the wrasse didn't move. The wrasse is usually one of my most active fish outside the angelfish.

The tang is being aggressive towards the wrasse, that's what they do, they use their scalpels on their tails.

Sorry, just not much to go on here, nothing that points to a specific issue at least.

Jay

Gold1 · Feb 2, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
The tang is being aggressive towards the wrasse, that's what they do, they use their scalpels on their tails.

Sorry, just not much to go on here, nothing that points to a specific issue at least.

Jay

Interesting. It's a little tomini tang so in the past it would have nothing to do with the wrasse. I am noticing the coral beauty is being a bit more aggressive chasing off the tang as well when in the past they all ignored each other. Nothing in the tank has changed except I added 4 coral last weekend.

I got another video of the wrasse. It's not great but it seems like it's back is curled to the side. It keeps hugging onto rocks in that shape as well.

Gold1 · Feb 2, 2024

MnFish1 said:
I can't see the video so will let the others answer - but a quick question - is the tail as ragged as it looks in a couple of the first pictures - or it might just be the picture

I don't think the tail is ragged. I think it looks that way in the pics because it's not spread out and curled a bit like a 'C' (separate issue from it's back being curled) but I could be mistaken. It hasn't put itself in a location I can really evaluate it.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 2, 2024

Gold1 said:
Interesting. It's a little tomini tang so in the past it would have nothing to do with the wrasse. I am noticing the coral beauty is being a bit more aggressive chasing off the tang as well when in the past they all ignored each other. Nothing in the tank has changed except I added 4 coral last weekend.

I got another video of the wrasse. It's not great but it seems like it's back is curled to the side. It keeps hugging onto rocks in that shape as well.

I still don’t have enough clues here to offer any advice.

What you are seeing is called displaced aggression, where for some reason, one fish starts picking on another, which in turn causes the second fish to start attacking a third - like a changing pecking order. It may well settle down, but nobody knows what causes this.

Gold1 · Feb 3, 2024

I got a better video. I was looking to take the fish out of the tank because I thought it was dead but then thought I'd try and put it in isolation to help it eat and recover. It was still swimming hard and every time I caught it in the net or container, it was actually able to escape. So it clearly has energy and mind. I ended up just leaving it in the tank when he escaped to the heavy rocks.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 3, 2024

Gold1 said:
I got a better video. I was looking to take the fish out of the tank because I thought it was dead but then thought I'd try and put it in isolation to help it eat and recover. It was still swimming hard and every time I caught it in the net or container, it was actually able to escape. So it clearly has energy and mind. I ended up just leaving it in the tank when he escaped to the heavy rocks.

That video helps. See how the fish is bumping into things? That means the fish could be blind. I saw two instances where it ran into something and didn't turn away - blind fish will do that. What happens if you put a bit of food in front of its mouth? If it eats when the food touches its mouth, that pretty much confirms blindness.

Jay

Gold1 · Feb 3, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
That video helps. See how the fish is bumping into things? That means the fish could be blind. I saw two instances where it ran into something and didn't turn away - blind fish will do that. What happens if you put a bit of food in front of its mouth? If it eats when the food touches its mouth, that pretty much confirms blindness.

Jay

Interesting. I tried putting food in its mouth tonight and it ignored it but I think it was already in its sleep cocoon even though it was 5pm and the lights were still on. Could explain why it has been seeming to sleep at weird times and weird positions. Though it does seem to keep finding it's preferred cave.

Any suggestions for how to treat it, if possible? I'll keep trying to manually feed over the coming days.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 4, 2024

Gold1 said:
Interesting. I tried putting food in its mouth tonight and it ignored it but I think it was already in its sleep cocoon even though it was 5pm and the lights were still on. Could explain why it has been seeming to sleep at weird times and weird positions. Though it does seem to keep finding it's preferred cave.

Any suggestions for how to treat it, if possible? I'll keep trying to manually feed over the coming days.

If it is blindness (not confirmed yet though) then in some cases, it never resolves. In a few cases, if you can keep the fish fed, it does get better. Nobody really knows that causes blindness in fish - some say bright lights (but what about the sun?) others say nutritional defficits (unlikely in this cases) then trauma, from running into things. There are also internal infections that can damage the optic system.

Jay