Fairy wrasses are skinny they need help

CeeGee · #1 09/22/2007, 04:16 PM

I have had three fairy wrasses in my tank for a while now so I know that they are not cyanide caught. Two of them are really really thin. The fish all eat well. My McCosker flasher could stand to eat a little better but it is shy in comparison to the other two.

I feed mysis and ocean nutrition prime reef that is rinsed in RO/DI then soaked in selcon once a day and that is sometimes substitued with Newlife Spectrum pellets. It is impossible for me to feed more than once a day because I work all day and get home at night and that is when I feed.

I have asked what people are feeding their Fairy wrasses several times and I get the reply of Mysis shrimp each time nothing more. I have already lost one McCoskers to being this like this I would really like to keep the one I have now kicking for many more years. I feel I need a broader range of food but not sure what else they will eat.

It is apparent to me that these fish are not caught with drugs but they seem to be losing weight at an incredible rate. If it were cyanide they would surely be dead by now as I have had my solar wrasse for over a year probably closer to a year and a half.

Could too much flow in my tank be causing this? I am running Tunze streams on a controller (6000's in a 38 gallon tank). I am thinking that maybe they are working too hard to swim in effect burning off too much of the nutrition that they receiving. Does this sound plausible?

These fish were healthy as healthy can be before being introduced to the main tank with all this flow. They were quarantined and treated for any worms with prazi-pro and fed fed fed till they were really plump for 8 weeks before going into the main tank.

If the too much flow theory isn't it are there any known diseases that cause fish to loose weight with no other visible side effects?

Thanks for any and all help my fish will appreciate it.

Capt. Nemo · #2 09/22/2007, 04:37 PM

I'm no expert, but I would suggest that the cause of the weight loss may be internal parasites. You may want to seek advice in the disease forum as well.

CeeGee · #3 09/22/2007, 04:57 PM

Thanks for the reply. I will see what others have to say before heading over to the disease forum.

snorvich · #4 09/22/2007, 05:04 PM

I feed my fairy/flasher wrasses a minimum of three times per day; these are very high energy fish. I feed: Rod's food, mysis, flake food, cyclopeeze, plankton.

CeeGee · #5 09/22/2007, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by snorvich
I feed my fairy/flasher wrasses a minimum of three times per day; these are very high energy fish. I feed: Rod's food, mysis, flake food, cyclopeeze, plankton.

Do you add any vitamins to their food? How much time in between feedings?

My exquisite fairy looks really good he still has some good body mass to him. The solar and McCosker on the other hand.... are skinny. The McCosker still has good color but the solar looks horrendous. He never really looked that good to start with (I mail ordered him from phishy business) but he is extremely pale.

I can't get the Rod's food at my LFS and the fish don't really go for cyclopeeze either. What is plankton? I haven't seen that for sale either at my LFS.

Bret61081 · #6 09/22/2007, 06:43 PM

I would treat ur tank ur tank for flukes. I do it to my tank about 2x a year just to be on the safe side....

LargeAngels · #7 09/23/2007, 09:11 AM

Like snorvich I feed my wrasses many times per day. They need multiple feedings. One solution which may work for you is to us an automatic feeder with flake and pellets, if they eat dry food. Occasionally I soak my food in Selcon and Vita-Chem.

snorvich · #8 09/23/2007, 09:38 AM

Large Angels has a good idea. Mine WILL eat pellet food but I prefer other options but flake would work well with an autofeeder. Selcon is a good additive to add nutritional value. Garlic works to induce finicky eaters but I am dubious of any medicinal qualities despite anecdotal descriptions in the literature.

CeeGee · #9 09/23/2007, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by snorvich
Large Angels has a good idea. Mine WILL eat pellet food but I prefer other options but flake would work well with an autofeeder. Selcon is a good additive to add nutritional value. Garlic works to induce finicky eaters but I am dubious of any medicinal qualities despite anecdotal descriptions in the literature.

Yeah I don't believe garlic is a cure all either. For some strange reason I get some weird fish. None of mine will eat garlic or will they eat cyclopeeze.

zemuron114 · #10 09/24/2007, 02:58 AM

May be internal parasites, or your temp may be too high causing their metabolism to rise more. Whats your temp?

Try soaking the food in prazi pro. I dont believe it will harm inverts. try feeding a few more times a day and see if they become fatter over the next week or so. If not then you may want to quarantine and treat for internal parasites.

CeeGee · #11 09/24/2007, 12:39 PM

Temp stays at 79-80 degrees.

Going to try the more feedings and see if that helps if not it is off to quarantine I guess.

msn711 · #12 09/24/2007, 01:06 PM

If you're having a hard time finding time to feed, you might also adjust your light schedule so that the lights are on more while you're home. That way, you can feed them more than once a day. There's no rule saying they're daylight ours have to be the same as yours and mine.

rcypert · #13 09/24/2007, 01:48 PM

Just feed more often. Wrasses love to eat and if you tank isnt a good source of live food then they must have multiple feedings. Do you have a refugium? Do you think your skimmer and flow could be zapping excess foods out of the tank too fast so that a healthy population of infauna cannot become established? A G3 is rated for up to 250 gallons right? Thats a big skimmer on a tiny tank. Your not one of those BB crazies are you?

stringcheese · #14 09/25/2007, 05:33 PM

They eat plankton. All of your expensive filtering removes plankton. I would feed cyclops-eez (tiny frozen or live red bugs) but would turn off filters and protien skimmers prior to feeding. I would leave circulation pump(s) running so it stays in suspension where they like to eat it. And as long as you never turn the circulation pumps off you don't have to worry about oxygen loss. If you turned everything off and forgot to turn them back on you could crash (I've done it) and lose everything.

seahorsesource.com sells rots and I've bought them and they arrived alive and kicking. I also bought their decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Which hatch in tank like clock-work 24hrs after they are introduced.

CeeGee · #15 09/25/2007, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rcypert
Just feed more often. Wrasses love to eat and if you tank isnt a good source of live food then they must have multiple feedings. Do you have a refugium? Do you think your skimmer and flow could be zapping excess foods out of the tank too fast so that a healthy population of infauna cannot become established? A G3 is rated for up to 250 gallons right? Thats a big skimmer on a tiny tank. Your not one of those BB crazies are you?

You would think that the G3 would be overkill on this tiny tank but I have a hair algae problem that says otherwise. I have a refugium that refuses to grow chaeto and doesn't seem to add much life to the tank other than another place for detritus to settle and pollute the tank.

Yeah I have gone BB as I had a SSB for the first two years of the tank and after phosphate problems and battling hair algae I decided to go bare bottom and install a phosphate reactor that seems to only be sucking money out of my bank account instead of phosphate out of the water and rocks. The hair algae keeps coming even after ROWA and massive massive water changes. I do not overfeed obviously as my fish are skinny and I use RO/DI that test 0 TDS so I have no frickin clue where all this phosphate is coming from. I also rinse all my frozen food in RO/DI before feeding.

I wouldn't say that I am crazy but the Hair Algae is making me that way along with the no color non growing SPS because of phosphate.

Quote:

Originally posted by stringcheese
They eat plankton. All of your expensive filtering removes plankton. I would feed cyclops-eez (tiny frozen or live red bugs) but would turn off filters and protien skimmers prior to feeding. I would leave circulation pump(s) running so it stays in suspension where they like to eat it. And as long as you never turn the circulation pumps off you don't have to worry about oxygen loss. If you turned everything off and forgot to turn them back on you could crash (I've done it) and lose everything.

seahorsesource.com sells rots and I've bought them and they arrived alive and kicking. I also bought their decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Which hatch in tank like clock-work 24hrs after they are introduced.

Thanks for the Rot info. I have all the other stuff you mentioned covered as I have a controller with a feed cycle. I hit a button and the pumps go off. I feed and they come back on after a certain amount of time.

eddtango · #16 09/26/2007, 11:26 AM

Feed them Mysis or brine shrimp soaked in garlic.

CeeGee · #17 09/27/2007, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by eddtango
Feed them Mysis or brine shrimp soaked in garlic.

Thanks.

fittiger · #18 09/28/2007, 10:30 AM

Three fairy wrasses in a 38 gallon tank is a lot, especially being different species. What other fish do you have in the tank? Without knowing the answer to that question, it sounds like you may have bioload issues with the hair algae and phosphate problem. How often do you perform water changes and do you use RO or DI water?

The best thing to do to plump up the wrasses is buy a bottle or two of pods and dump them in the refugium. Also get an automatic feeder and use Spectrum New Life Pellets, setting it to feed SMALL amounts, multiple times a day.

sirjohn · #19 09/28/2007, 12:03 PM

I reiterate most of what was said above. In particular, a refugium with a good "refugium substrate" base and macroalgea such as caleurpa mexicana or other to breed lots of pods that will float in the tank and provide a constant source of food for the wrasse. If you work like most of us do, you can get an automatic feeder and set it to feed the tank with flakes and pellets twice a day (assuming the wrasses eat flakes and/or pellets). the third feeding is yours and you can then feed the meaty frozen stuff, such as mysis or brine shrimp. I also found that wrasses love krill, but make sure you shop it up small enough for them or they will spit it out. If they are really smart, they will smash the krill against the live rock to break it up into pieces they can eat. Really neat to watch.

Finally, I echo the comment that 3 fairy wrasses is alot for a 38 gallon. Some of these wrasses get really, really big and 3 wrasses will put a strain on your tank. I have a 92 gallon and I am shocked at the size of my Red-Head Solon Fairy Wrasse. I'd love to add a second wrasse (different species) but I am hesitant because the Solon is so big...

CeeGee · #20 09/28/2007, 07:56 PM

The 3 fairy wrasses are very small. The tank is by no means overstocked. I have seen overstocked tanks and mine definitely doesn't fall into that category. They all get along great and the hair algae problem was going on when there were only two fish in the tank. Bioload has nothing to do with what is going on. I change water very frequently and in larger than average amounts. Aside from the phosphate issue the tank is very stable. I run a skimmer that should handle a tank 3-4 times the size of mine and I have a total water volume of around 65 gallons or so as my sump is larger than the display. If all of my posts would have been read one would have seen that I use RO/DI that has a TDS of 0.

I think the problem may be from the very start of the tank. After cycling the tank I found a shell that stunk to high heaven very early on in the life of the tank and I employed a sandbed that was deeper than a half inch but not a full DSB. I think the whatever was decaying in that shell put a lot of phosphate into the tank and the sand did not help over the course of the last two years.

The tank tests 0 for nitrate always has but the hair algae still grows. The hair algae isn't the normal green either it is whitish (ghost like) in the less dense areas and brown on the powerheads where it grows the thickest.

The refugium has no substrate as I was informed by many people on this board to go BB in the fuge to avoid any further problems down the road.

Also the consensus is near 100% to stay far away from calerpa. I have chaeto but it doesn't grow. which is strange in and of itself. If the hair algae can get the ingredients it needs to flourish why don't the chaeto do better? The chaeto came from fishdoc11 and does an excellent job for him and his beautiful tank.

CeeGee · #21 09/28/2007, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CeeGee
If the hair algae can get the ingredients it needs to flourish why don't the chaeto do better? The chaeto came from fishdoc11 and does an excellent job for him and his beautiful tank.

Ingredients for crying out loud

While I was typing that my daughter came into the room and was asking me something. That should have been nutrients.

Johnsteph10 · #22 09/29/2007, 10:38 AM

Invest in an automated food dispenser -- you can at least stock it with NLS pellets as they are an excellent quality dry food.

Community wrasses (fairy, square, dispar, etc. )need a LOT of open water - a 38g is simply not big enough..whether you feel it is "overstocked" or not. They are not the best choice for a small tank.

CeeGee · #23 09/29/2007, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Johnsteph10
Invest in an automated food dispenser -- you can at least stock it with NLS pellets as they are an excellent quality dry food.

Community wrasses (fairy, square, dispar, etc. )need a LOT of open water - a 38g is simply not big enough..whether you feel it is "overstocked" or not. They are not the best choice for a small tank.

They are going to be moved to my 75 as soon as I get my stand built. The 38 has been a temporary home. It is a 3 foot long tank and the fish do not seem cramped at all. They are less than 3 inches long.

I was unaware that there are square and dispar wrasses. I always thought those were anthias. Maybe I should read more or put another 20 years into the hobby. It is kinda funny that all the literature I have found says that two of the three choices of fairies I have are well suited to the size tank they are currently in but everyone here seems to think they need a 1000 gallon tank.

I don't think that having a larger tank would make these fish fatter. I don't remember this thread being about is my tank large enough. Maybe I should ask a mod to re-title it.

Thurge · #24 09/30/2007, 08:45 AM

The only gripe I have ever heard of in regards to Cularpa is that it may go sexual. Many have it in their fuge without it going sexual. Everything I ever read said that simply keeping it under 24 hour lighting should prevent that occuring.

I would echo the recommendation to use an auto feeder. Set it up for two or three feedings and then supplement more meaty foods for a final feeding before they go to bed.
Another good idea that was mentioned previously is to move the time your lights come on so that they are on more when you are home.

CeeGee · #25 09/30/2007, 11:56 PM

The gripes that I have heard with caulerpa is that if it gets into your main tank at all you might as well hang it up. The fact that it can go sexual is the other main complaint.

I just don't understand why the chaeto hasn't taken off. Everyone else seems to have good luck with it.

BTW nice avatar Thurge! I love those cartoons.