Help with new Yellow Wrasse

[Isletime]

I have a yellow wrasse and a fairy wrasse that have been in quarantine for about a week. The quarantine tank is a 20L and was originally filled with water from my DT. I'm using a HOB that only has a sponge that was seeded for several months in my DT sump. Besides the normal PVC decorations I also have two containers with about 2-3 inches of sand so that the wrasses can bury themselves if they like. This tank was setup just to quarantine these two fish.

Water temp is 77, SG 1.025, and ammonia has stayed at 0, and I treated the tank with PraziPro on the second day. Since the afternoon on the second day the yellow wrasse has developed a fat lip for lack of a better term. His lip looks swollen and a little white. There are also two white looking spots on his dorsal fin. This past weekend I started a round of Maracyn 2 to either prevent or treat an infection. I'm currently on day 3 and have seen no improvement.

The yellow wrasse is spending about 50% of his time buried in the sand and the rest of his time is spent swimming around. He's interested in eating, and tries, but I think his lip situation is making it difficult/impossible to eat.

Fortunately the fairy wrasse looks great and is eating well, but I'm obviously concerned about him getting whatever the yellow one has.

Thoughts or ideas based on the description and the picture?

 

[StevenBell]

Looked around and couldn't find anything except acclimation stress.Have you observed them fighting as all?

 

[StevenBell]

You may try dropping your salinity level down a couple notches to see if it helps

 

[Reefpro]

This is pretty common.....wrasses as they bury go pretty fast and sometimes bang up their mouths. Feed him small enough stuff so he doesn't have to work extra hard to eat. He should be fine in a week or so

 

[Isletime]

Looked around and couldn't find anything except acclimation stress.Have you observed them fighting as all?

No fighting at all. Hopefully it is just stress. He did bury himself for about 48 hours when he was first put in the tank. He seems less stressed now and doesn't even hide when I approach the tank.

 

[Isletime]

This is pretty common.....wrasses as they bury go pretty fast and sometimes bang up their mouths. Feed him small enough stuff so he doesn't have to work extra hard to eat. He should be fine in a week or so

That's what I was thinking too. The white on the dorsal fun had me concerned though. I'm going to swap out the sand container to a larger one just in case that is part of the problem.

 

[evolved]

What you are seeing is a bacterial infection. It has set in on the upper lip and on the dorsal fin, and there are signs of it on the body as well.

You need to up the antibiotic. Consider switching to erythromycin.

The damage to the lips generally occurs in the bag while shipping/transport. It will be the demise of the fish if the infection is not cleared up.

The sand burrowing wrasses are a bit more susceptible to this sort of thing, as they end up exposing themselves to bacteria in the substrate.

Cirrhilabrus wrasses do NOT bury in the sand. While it's possible the Cirrhilabrus wrasse in the QT could become infected from the Halichoeres wrasses, it's not likely.

 

[Isletime]

What you are seeing is a bacterial infection. It has set in on the upper lip and on the dorsal fin, and there are signs of it on the body as well.

You need to up the antibiotic. Consider switching to erythromycin.

The damage to the lips generally occurs in the bag while shipping/transport. It will be the demise of the fish if the infection is not cleared up.

The sand burrowing wrasses are a bit more susceptible to this sort of thing, as they end up exposing themselves to bacteria in the substrate.

Cirrhilabrus wrasses do NOT bury in the sand. While it's possible the Cirrhilabrus wrasse in the QT could become infected from the Halichoeres wrasses, it's not likely.

Evolved - thanks so much for your advice! Are there concerns with using erythromycin while the maracyn 2 treatment is still underway? Maybe do a water change before switching?

 

[evolved]

Good question; I'm not sure. I'd do a partial water chance to be safe; else run some carbon for a few hours, then remove.

 

[Isletime]

Good question; I'm not sure. I'd do a partial water chance to be safe; else run some carbon for a few hours, then remove.

Just to be safe I just did a 25% water change and now I'm running carbon. I'll let it run throughout the evening and then pull it before bed and start with the Erythromycin. The good news is that my wife got him to eat a little rod's this afternoon and all in all he looks happy. Hopefully I can knock this out and get him back in shape.

 

[Isletime]

Good question; I'm not sure. I'd do a partial water chance to be safe; else run some carbon for a few hours, then remove.

I went ahead and have started the first treatment of the Erythromycin. Is there any reason that you leaned toward that specific antibiotic? Most of the reading that I have done says that Erythromycin primarily treats gram positive bacteria, which is rare in marine environments. Since the Maracyn 2 wasn't working anyhow (and is specifically for gram negative bacterial infections), I thought giving the EM a try probably made sense.

 

[evolved]

Scientifically, no reason. Collectively, it seems to work better in these instances.

 

[Isletime]

Just a quick update for anyone that was interested. I finished a 4 day round of the Erythromycin and the wrasse looks much better. There is no longer any white on his dorsal fin, though the fin is a little ragged right where the white spots were. No white anywhere on the body either. His lip still doesn't look 100%, but I don't think there is any infection left. Instead of doing another round of antibiotics I'm going to give him a couple of days and see if the infections comes back at all. He is also eating well and swimming all over the tank when I add some Rod's or Mysis. He still ignores any pellet food, but that will come in time I'm sure. Hopefully I can move them both into my display tank in 3 weeks or so!

 

[evolved]

I'm very happy to hear that; I wondered about this over the weekend.

 

[Isletime]

I was just looking at my old posts and thought I would give an update here. 2.5 years later and both the yellow and fairy wrasses are still doing great. Goes to show how quarantining your fish can make a huge difference. I could have never treated this guy in my DT and I would have put all my other fish at risk.

Bill

 

[tjb1993]

I'm very happy to hear that; I wondered about this over the weekend.

Evolved,
My melanurus buried himself for about 3 days, not sure why. I came home from work today and he was out and about, but his reflexes are slowed and reserved, not displaying as confidently, and having trouble eating which is obviously not like a melany. There is small white bump on the left ventral side of the lip, and he is swimming around with his mouth open. Not exactly breathing hard, but he looks nervous. Any idea? I just reset my sandbed by only a 1/4" with some larger grade crushed coral, I'm thinking maybe he is having trouble burying himself in it..