Fish Died in QT Overnight

PGT253 · Dec 30, 2017

Hello.

I have a pair of blue star leopard wrasse, a black leopard wrasse and a pink margin fairy wrasse in a 10g qt tank with a small piece of live rock, 2 cups of live sand from the DT, a HOB filter, and a sponge filter. The fish have been in qt for nearly 3 weeks, eating heartily and looking healthy. So I've decided it's time to treat for disease, planning on deworming them first using Prazipro. So I brought the salinity from 0.019 to 0.016 during one WC, waited 4 days before doing another WC to bring it down to 0.012 and things went downhill from there. One day after being in 0.012 sg water, all the leopard wrasses stayed in the sand and didn't come out the next morning, the pink margin wrasse still did fine, eating all frozen food that I fed, until the following morning the black leopard & the pink margin were found dead. Now one of the blue star is laying on the bottom breathing fast, the other one still missing in the cup of sand. I've not started any chemicals or anything different except bringing down the salinity. Is it that fatal that all my wrasses died overnight? I'm completely lost and don't know what to do now. Any thoughts or pointers about my QT would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Robink · Dec 30, 2017

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why did you lower your salinity?
And I'm gonna say that's the problem.

scardall · Dec 30, 2017

I bet he was going for hypo-salinity to kill any ich the fish may have. IMO bad idea.

Robink · Dec 30, 2017

If any of the wrasse are still alive I would slowly raise the salinity back to what it was. Generally in qt they start out at sg of .019 and I raise it slowly to match the display.

PGT253 · Dec 30, 2017

I was going to do hypo. I did hypo a couple times in the past with tangs and clowns so I never thought that fish, or maybe wrasse didn't take lower salinity that well...

Robink · Dec 30, 2017

I've never done that I just observe or use copper for ick. @evolved would probably know reference the wrasse and salinity.
And sorry for your loss.

PGT253 · Dec 30, 2017

Initially I planned on deworming and observing only, until I saw the wrasses flashed against the pvc one day. Just flashing and no white spots that I could see. Now look at the outcomes it's obv a bad idea.

PGT253 · Dec 30, 2017

Thank you. I am raising SG again. Hopefully they can pull through.

Robink · Dec 30, 2017

I know some wrasse are more sensitive than others. There's a list in the fish disease forum of which meds and methods work best with each fish. I think @melypr1985 posted it.

Robink · Dec 30, 2017

PGT253 said:
Thank you. I am raising SG again. Hopefully they can pull through.

I hope so too. Hate losing fish.

Greenstreet.1 · Dec 30, 2017

Well you are not alone I just lost a blue star in qt it was my fault look like I over dosed my focus and metro mix with the food. But they did do well with the two treatments of prazi.

PGT253 · Dec 30, 2017

Greenstreet.1 said:
Well you are not alone I just lost a blue star in qt it was my fault look like I over dosed my focus and metro mix with the food. But they did do well with the two treatments of prazi.

Sorry for your loss...

Tbell805 · Dec 31, 2017

Some wrasses don't ship the best. I'm sorry for your losses though it can be really discouraging. For wrasses I typically do two rounds of prazi and hold off on any copper or metro/focus until I see signs of disease. I hope you are able to try again sounds like a good group

USMC 4 LIFE · Dec 31, 2017

When doing hypo, it’s important to monitor PH as it can drop significantly to dangerous levels.

I’ve done hypo before, to treat for flukes and ich, at 1.009 for 30 consecutive days with no ill affects to any fish except leopard wrasses.

As far as wrasses hiding in the sand, I wouldn’t be concerned. After much reading and some personal experience I learned that these wrasses typically always surface when their health is deteriorating.

Be carful on raising the salinity too quickly. It’s easier to lower it but more caution should be taken when raising it. Gradually raising it .003 per day is ok.

Best of luck

Oh and there are a bunch of great threads on fish illnesses, remedies done by Mely and Humblefish that are in my opinion essential to consistently reading and re-reading. Very informative stuff and great work by those two.