Exquisite fairy wrasse sudden death

[erk]

My exquisite fairy wrasse had been doing great for about a month or so then up and died last night. I recently had another fish die which caused a nitrate spike to about 10 ppm. I found the dead wrasse and before disposing of the body I checked it over. The gills where missing completely from both sides. I'm not sure if they were eaten after death or are the cause of his death. Is it normal for the gills to be eaten completely away after death? I didn't do any other dissection of the fish since I don't know much about fish biology.

 

[Triggreef]

Are you quarantining your fish? I would observe the rest of your fish closely. What was the other fish that died? Wrasse ship poorly & can die for no apparent reason, although a month is usually a safe point.

I quarantine all my fish, & although I lose my fair share in quarantine, it is pretty rare to lose one in the display.

 

[erk]

I don't quarantine because I don't have the space in my apartment for it. I keep the fish in an acclimation box for a couple days and watch and make sure it eats. The other fish that died recently was a flasher wrasse that I was trying to get to eat. He didn't eat in the box so I let it in the tank and it seemed to pick at food but I guess it was slowly starving. Died after about 2 weeks. The other fish in the tank are doing very well. All out and acting normal. That is one thing I find interesting. How after keeping the fish for a week we learn their comings and goings and know the instant something is wrong. I didn't realize wrasses were such hit and misses till now. I've tried keeping many so far and other than my Pylei, they all seem to succumb to random deaths. Pylei I sold to someone with a 300 gal tank because it wanted to kill everything. Before that I had it for almost 5 months. I think I'm just going to wait a couple months before I try to replace this wrasse and make sure the rest of my fish are OK. Would hate to lose my scooter blenny.

 

[maroun.c]

Might be that your fish are coming with internal parasites which causes the fish to slowly fade away even if aggressively eating. I had a few get skinnier even with heavy feeding before so started quarantine. Now each fish gets a couple of rounds of Prazipro which should ensure its free from internal and external parasites. This also gives it the chance to get used to prepared food you use and put on some body mass before being put in display.

 

[erk]

Yeah, I'm definitely planning to setup a simple quarantine once I own a house. With the one bedroom apartment its too difficult with the girlfriend and such. I definitely think it might've been internal parasites because he was getting thinner even with 2 or 3 large feedings every day. I'll watch my other fish for any signs and setup a small quarantine to treat them if necessary.