Foxface resting upright on sandbed

[AquaLifeStudio]

I have caught my Foxface rabbit fish, on at least two occasions, resting on the sandbed in the same low flow area of the tank. It remains upright, not laying on its side, and it maintains it's ordinary yellow coloring. This is the least aggressive fish of the bunch that I have in this tank and it does regularly get outcompeted for food. With that being stated, this fish is still well fed as it can get the leftovers once the others get their fill.

It eats nori, frozen, flakes and pellets. Tank mates are a blue, kole and powder brown tangs, yellow longnose butterfly fish and a gold nugget clown fish. I dont witness much aggression within the tank, they all get along and swim through the tank very much as a group. They even graze on the algae that grows on the rocks and the sand bed.

I'm not sure if I should be concerned. The fish swims around in a normal manner before and after this "resting". It's normal respiration appears to be faster than the other fish. It, along with all the others, have been treated with cupramine and prazipro in QT for more than 3 months. None of the fish have any symptoms of parasites or any noticable signs of disease.

Anybody have any similar experiences?

 

[Old Fritz]

Pictures would help a lot although it sounds like you only see this on occasion. What are your water parameters (I doubt its that because the other fish are fine, but you never know). Do you see this after turning on lights? Is it still eating? If it's still eating and swimming like normal, and just occasionally sitting on the bottom I wouldn't worry about it. I've seen a few fish even that spend most of their time sitting on their side, but will perk up when you walk by anticipating food (not a foxface though). If you want to play it safe you can try quarantining it to 1) prevent the spread of disease if this is because of a parasite or something and 2) so you can observe its actions better.

 

[Old Fritz]

Eating is typically a good sign of a healthy fish as well as normal activity such as swimming in its group like you mentioned.

 

[AquaLifeStudio]

I've observed this only twice but I'm sure it has happened more since I cant sit in front of the tank for 12 hours a day. It's in the middle of the lighting schedule when my radions are at the brightest (70%), not in the morning or in the evening lighting which is under lots of blue. It only does this when it doesnt see us people around the tank.

I fed the tank immediately after noticing it for the 2nd time earlier today and it immediately went after the food. It's a casual swimmer, I never really see it fly around the tank unless spooked.

I have a video of it from my nest cam which runs 24/7 on this tank. Check out the lower right corner.


And here it is swimming with the group.

 

[AquaLifeStudio]

 

[Dr.Xipoles]

My foxface is very shy. It also sits in the bottom of the tank when it gets scared when I put my hand in the tank and changes color to brown but bounces back in an hour or two. Seems normal to me.

 

[Old Fritz]

as xipoles said I wouldn't worry about it. It's doesnt seem to happen often like you said, and they tend to do it a bit when spooked. Coloration and appetite are good indicators of health and since his color is normal and he is eating I wouldn't worry much about it, but to be safe get a good look at him when he is up close and look for anything that could be seen externally. But again this seems to be normal behavior

 

[Jesterrace]

If it's not resting on it's side and it still swimming around and feeding I wouldn't worry too much. Foxfaces are goofy fish. Mine can randomly spaz out and make almost all my fish disappear in a split second (My Leopard Wrasse isn't phased much by these antics so it stays out). I also saw mine early on at night (in night camo scheme) resting at an angle on it's tail in the sandbed. It did that for a couple of nights in a corner of my tank and then found more comfort in the rockwork.