Flasher Wrasse Acting Strangely?

SMSREEF · Sep 27, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
Regarding the specific gravity, 1.026 is normal seawater, about 35 ppt salinity. HOWEVER - many LFS maintain their fish in low salinity systems. If you try to acclimate one of these wrasse from, say, 1.020 to 1.026 in one shot, there will be issues. You can always drop the salinity of a fish easily, but raising it that much must be done in stages, I take 3 days for that. That said, DD probably ships at a higher salinity, can you confirm?

I don't see anything externally on your wrasse, but I've seen half a dozen similar cases (including one that I had) where they swam oddly, disorientated, but most of them would still eat o.k. I have no idea what causes that, sorry.

Jay

Good Morning Jay,
How fast does osmotic shock present in a fish if the salinity was very different?

cshouston · Sep 27, 2020

Thanks a bunch for that info. Unfortunately, the wrasse didn’t make it through the night. I just checked on it in the sump and it has stopped breathing. All the other fish are doing fine, so I’m at a loss as to why I’ve lost both a fairy and a flasher to similar symptoms around 48 hours after they arrive.

cshouston · Sep 27, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
Regarding the specific gravity, 1.026 is normal seawater, about 35 ppt salinity. HOWEVER - many LFS maintain their fish in low salinity systems. If you try to acclimate one of these wrasse from, say, 1.020 to 1.026 in one shot, there will be issues. You can always drop the salinity of a fish easily, but raising it that much must be done in stages, I take 3 days for that. That said, DD probably ships at a higher salinity, can you confirm?

I don't see anything externally on your wrasse, but I've seen half a dozen similar cases (including one that I had) where they swam oddly, disorientated, but most of them would still eat o.k. I have no idea what causes that, sorry.

Jay

Thanks, Jay. All my fish have come from DD so far and all are fine except for the fairy and flasher. I don’t remember what the exact SG was, I think .025, but it was close enough that I wasn’t concerned. All the fish acted great and ate right away after a brief bag acclimation process.

Jay Hemdal · Sep 27, 2020

SMSREEF said:
Good Morning Jay,
How fast does osmotic shock present in a fish if the salinity was very different?

It isn't so much systemic shock, but rather, over 24 to 36 hours, the fish will dehydrate because it can't balance osmotically. That said, the primary symptom is rapid emaciation as water floods out of the fish's tissues, and I didn't see that in the case of this wrasse, I was just trying to cover all bases.

Jay

SMSREEF · Sep 27, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
It isn't so much systemic shock, but rather, over 24 to 36 hours, the fish will dehydrate because it can't balance osmotically. That said, the primary symptom is rapid emaciation as water floods out of the fish's tissues, and I didn't see that in the case of this wrasse, I was just trying to cover all bases.

Jay

Thank you for the explanation Jay. There is so much to learn in this hobby, especially when trying to figure out what is wrong with a fish. Thankfully there are awesome resources like you on here to teach us.

SMSREEF · Sep 27, 2020

cshouston said:
Thanks a bunch for that info. Unfortunately, the wrasse didn’t make it through the night. I just checked on it in the sump and it has stopped breathing. All the other fish are doing fine, so I’m at a loss as to why I’ve lost both a fairy and a flasher to similar symptoms around 48 hours after they arrive.

So Sorry for your loss @cshouston

saltyhog · Sep 27, 2020

LA salinity is usually around 1.017-1.018, DD has always been 1.024-1.026. As Jay says going down in salinity can be done fairly quickly. Back when I used hyposalinity in QT I would go from 1.018 down to 1.009 in about 24 hours without any problems. Going up is quite different.

If the salinity is within 0.001 It's not been a problem ever for me. More than that however, I don't go up more than 0.001 per day. In my QT tank I remove a small amount of water and dissolve an amount of salt (from trial and error) that it takes to raise the salinity 0.001 and slowly add that water back to the tank over 24 hours. Repeat this every day till at the desired salinity.

I have on a couple of occasions gone up 0.003 in 24 hours or so but I would not recommend doing that.

cshouston · Sep 27, 2020

saltyhog said:
LA salinity is usually around 1.017-1.018, DD has always been 1.024-1.026. As Jay says going down in salinity can be done fairly quickly. Back when I used hyposalinity in QT I would go from 1.018 down to 1.009 in about 24 hours without any problems. Going up is quite different.

If the salinity is within 0.001 It's not been a problem ever for me. More than that however, I don't go up more than 0.001 per day. In my QT tank I remove a small amount of water and dissolve an amount of salt (from trial and error) that it takes to raise the salinity 0.001 and slowly add that water back to the tank over 24 hours. Repeat this every day till at the desired salinity.

I have on a couple of occasions gone up 0.003 in 24 hours or so but I would not recommend doing that.

That sounds about right. I’m pretty sure the Diver’s Den water was 1.025 when I checked it, so I didn’t worry about putting them right into the 1.026 water.

evolved · Sep 27, 2020

cshouston said:
Right now, the moonlight phase is on and he’s swimming into the MP40 flow almost on his side, going up to the surface, and just kind of being blown around; it’s almost like he’s asleep at the same time he’s swimming, but I can’t be sure. Is this normal flasher wrasse after-dark behavior?

I'm a bit late here, but that's never normal behavior after lights out, fwiw.

saltyhog said:
That very much looks like a spinal injury.

Agree.

saltyhog said:
As long as he's eating there is a chance he could recover, but I'm not optimistic.

I've never had one recover from this point, either.

Jay Hemdal said:
That said, DD probably ships at a higher salinity, can you confirm?

They keep their systems right at 34 ppt.

cshouston said:
That sounds about right. I’m pretty sure the Diver’s Den water was 1.025 when I checked it, so I didn’t worry about putting them right into the 1.026 water.

Agree - that's a trivial difference.

eatbreakfast · Sep 27, 2020

My question is how do you acclimate your shipped fish? I'm not so worried about salinity change, but rather it's exposure to ammonia, as this can cause general weakness in fish, much like was described by the flasher.

cshouston · Sep 27, 2020

I think you guys were right about spinal injury. I thought the wrasse was dead this morning, but when I reached into the sump and touched it, it jerked away from my finger. I left it all day, checking on it occasionally, but at most it would swim at the surface by a corner. A little while I ago, I went to check on it and it was alive, but swimming upside down. I cradled it and tried to right it, but it kept listing to the side and turning upside down. I ended up euthanizing him a few minutes ago. Such a shame; I wish there was something more I could have done.

cshouston · Sep 27, 2020

eatbreakfast said:
My question is how do you acclimate your shipped fish? I'm not so worried about salinity change, but rather it's exposure to ammonia, as this can cause general weakness in fish, much like was described by the flasher.

I float the bags for 15-20 minutes, then I check the salinity of the incoming shipping water. If it’s close, I just net the fish and introduce it into the new tank. If it’s wildly off, I’ll dump into a bucket with an air stone and a couple of drops of ammonia-reducer, then do the add/subtract water game until the salinity is closer to where it should be.

in the case of this wrasse, the shipping water was 1.025 so I netted him right in after temperature acclimation.