Mccoskers wrasse injured?

[Grossman90]

I moved my mccoskers from qt to my dt yesterday. While i was trying to catch him in qt he was going nuts and was running into the glass sometimes. Once he was in the dt he was swimming for a bit then was just going up and down against the glass. Today he was mostly sitting in the corner of my tank facing upwards towards the top of the water. Not sure if this is injury or stress. I did notice my leopard wrasse take a nip at him a couple times but fins still intact.


He's currently hiding between some rock.

 

[4FordFamily]

Looks to me like a likely spinal injury. What kind of top do you have?

Wrasse are easily startled and leap towards the top of the tank to smack in to the lid. This leads to spinal injuries pretty commonly, unfortunately.

These either get worse over the course of a week or they slowly improve. There’s not much you can do, IME 30% survive this and it worsens over a few days until the fish is immobile with most never recovering. I’ve not known flashers to recover often.

This behavior is characterized initially by swimming as if a sinker is tied to their tail, laying around, and eventually even spinning around aimlessly as it progresses followed by near immobility and eventually death. Sometimes a wrasse can survive immobility for weeks at which time they slowly begin to improve over the course of a few months.

 

[Grossman90]

Looks to me like a likely spinal injury. What kind of top do you have?

Wrasse are easily startled and leap towards the top of the tank to smack in to the lid. This leads to spinal injuries pretty commonly, unfortunately.

These either get worse over the course of a week or they slowly improve. There’s not much you can do, IME 30% survive this and it worsens over a few days until the fish is immobile with most never recovering. I’ve not known flashers to recover often.

This behavior is characterized initially by swimming as if a sinker is tied to their tail, laying around, and eventually even spinning around aimlessly as it progresses followed by near immobility and eventually death. Sometimes a wrasse can survive immobility for weeks at which time they slowly begin to improve over the course of a few months.

Netting top from brs with eggcrate in the back. I only could think running into my qt glass trying to catch it could've done this since he pretty much was like this from beginning of transfering him.

 

[Toofattofish]

I've seen quite a few wrasses dart quickly into the glass at stores, especially when there are way too many attempts to capture them (it seems each subsequent attempt stress them out more). This can definitely cause spinal injuries. How did you capture the wrasse?

 

[Grossman90]

I've seen quite a few wrasses dart quickly into the glass at stores, especially when there are way too many attempts to capture them (it seems each subsequent attempt stress them out more). This can definitely cause spinal injuries. How did you capture the wrasse?

With a net. I've done it a couple times during dips but never seen him dart like he was. Pretty sad.

 

[Toofattofish]

With a net. I've done it a couple times during dips but never seen him dart like he was. Pretty sad.

Everyone finds their own way to do things but I personally am not a big fan of nets since they seem to spook fish more and I feel the nylon can be somewhat traumatizing to fish in the transfer. I've had good luck with using Tupperware containers, either as they were made, or with holes burned into the bottom to make them into colanders. Fish don't really perceive the clear plastic and half the time my fish haven't even realized they've been captured until they're out of the tank.

 

[Grossman90]

Everyone finds their own way to do things but I personally am not a big fan of nets since they seem to spook fish more and I feel the nylon can be somewhat traumatizing to fish in the transfer. I've had good luck with using Tupperware containers, either as they were made, or with holes burned into the bottom to make them into colanders. Fish don't really perceive the clear plastic and half the time my fish haven't even realized they've been captured until they're out of the tank.

What kind of tuppaware container do you use?

 

[OrionN]

I had a really beautiful McCosker wrasse that was injured on transfer from QT to DT also. IMO, running into hard surface is the cause of my wrasse demise. I used an acrylic container to scoop him out, and that was the problem. He rammed full speed into it because he did not know it is there.
Since then I have use my net to catch wrasses. I am not a fan of net but it is soft and wrasse can see it. They cannot injure their head or spin ramming into it. It is true that the net may cause minor abrasion of the mucus coat, but for wrasse, this is a whole lot better than dislocated spine, which was what happened to mine. He was paralyzed, cannot move. Just lay on the bottom of my acclimation box, breathing. I can see his eye move and he was breathing. He died overnight, body completely intact otherwise.

 

[Grossman90]

I had a really beautiful McCosker wrasse that was injured on transfer from QT to DT also. IMO, running into hard surface is the cause of my wrasse demise. I used an acrylic container to scoop him out, and that was the problem. He rammed full speed into it because he did not know it is there.
Since then I have use my net to catch wrasses. I am not a fan of net but it is soft and wrasse can see it. They cannot injure their head or spin ramming into it. It is true that the net may cause minor abrasion of the mucus coat, but for wrasse, this is a whole lot better than dislocated spine, which was what happened to mine. He was paralyzed, cannot move. Just lay on the bottom of my acclimation box, breathing. I can see his eye move and he was breathing. He died overnight, body completely intact otherwise.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Grossman90]

Update: Whatever the mccoskers had he seems to be better. Last time I saw him was last sunday. I go by my tank just now and there he was. Wish I knew what the problem was when he was introduced into my DT.