Pod attached to fish?

[leahfiish]

Another update: I don't think my fish is going to make it. Over the last few days I noticed a decrease in appetite and less foraging for food in the rocks. He would eat smaller amounts of frozen food and spit more of it back out, and he wasn't as plump as he used to be. Today he is sort of listless and resting on the rocks and on the bottom of the tank. I don't think he will survive until the morning. I'm not sure what caused this, most likely a combination of factors. I added some live pods today to try to spur his appetite with no luck. I also moved the remaining sand into 2 deeper piles to make sure he can fully bury himself if he wants to, maybe the 1/2" to 1" deep sections weren't enough for him to get enough rest? Maybe the food I was feeding wasn't right for him? Maybe there are more isopods? Maybe internal parasites?
I'm done with fish for a while.

 

[reef lover]

Soory for your troubles...There is a type of isopod that will take up residence in a fish's mouth...i would take a look...

 

[ngoodermuth]

Shame... that’s one of my “wish list” fish. Beautiful. Sorry she’s not doing well

Was it ever treated for internal parasites? Any white-stringy poop?

Anampses are definitely some of the most difficult “reef-safe” wrasses to keep in home aquaria.

 

[leahfiish]

Treated with prazi a few times but I think I should have used metro. No stringy poop observed.

 

[leahfiish]

Well he is still alive but about the same as yesterday. Weak swimming, hiding/resting on the bottom most of the time. When I approached the tank to feed he came up to the top like he was going to eat, but weakly picked at a few pieces of food, nothing substantial. I turned the lights off early for the night so he can get some rest and he pretty much immediately buried in the sand. Also when he buries himself he seems unable to bury himself all the way despite having enough sand. I assume this is because he is weak.

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

I agree I would try to get a look in his mouth for a pod

 

[leahfiish]

He doesn't seem to have anything in his mouth or anything wrong with it that I can see.

 

[4FordFamily]

Sorry for the trouble, anampses need several small feedings each day. They’re not aggressive eaters and don’t swallow food quickly. They often bite large bites of food and then chew and spit it out several times. By the time this process has completed their tankmates have cleaned up all of the available food. This leads most of them to slowly starve out in home aquaria. 3-5 feedings per day may be able to maintain them long-term.

By the way, that isopod was gnarly. I hope it was the only one!

 

[leahfiish]

I typically fed 2-3x a day + coral feedings. I noticed he usually picks at the big pieces of food and chews them for a while but was usually very eager and would eat out of my hand. He is the only fish so no competition and he was usually plump looking. But I noticed that he stopped searching for food in the rocks as much so, I started feeding more which is when I noticed the slight decline in appetite, which got a lot worse in the last few days.

 

[leahfiish]

The wrasse didn't make it, I pulled him last night. I would have expected the isopods to find him as easy prey because he was just laying on the bottom, not even in the sand, but no signs of them even at late night hours. Today I was doing some tank maintenance and I found a dead isopod in my overflow strainer.

 

[reef lover]

So sorry.

 

[leahfiish]

I had no updates to this until today, I just found another isopod swimming around and netted it out. :/

 

[reef lover]

Bummer. No more have attached though?

 

[leahfiish]

Bummer. No more have attached though?

I don't have any fish so nothing to attach to.

 

[Apotack]

A trap worked for me, I baited it with mysis every night for several weeks. Kept at it until I didn’t catch any isopods for a few weeks.

 

[leahfiish]

A trap worked for me, I baited it with mysis every night for several weeks. Kept at it until I didn’t catch any isopods for a few weeks.

What kind of trap did you use? I found a plan for one but it seems pretty elaborate.

 

[Apotack]

Cut the top off a water bottle, drilled a small hole in the cap. The top of the water bottle was inserted into a glass jar pointing inward. Hope that makes sense. Good luck