please help--wrasse playing dead or dying

[otrlynn]

Bought a 12 line wrasse yesterday. Acclimated him and a long nose hawkfish carefully and placed him in a cycled quarantine tank. He swam around a bit after he was placed in the tank, then settled down behind some PVC pipe. This morning I thought he was dead. He was on his side, sort of curled, but a gentle nudge sent him swimming a little, though not very vigorously. There was also a lot of slimy looking stuff at the bottom of the tank, that I presumed came from him. I siphoned it up. I have heard that wrasses can "play dead" and also lie on their sides--but I don't know how typical my fishes behavior is. I have not had a wrasse before. Please share your experience. I will do a 20% water change after the water sits a bit to see if I can be sure that the nitrite is at zero.

Temp. 78
S.G. 1.025
PH 8.2
Alk 2.9 Meq
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0-0.5 (hard to tell on the color)
Nitrite 10

[Sk8r]

some wrasses make a slime cocoon to sleep in. You may have scared him out of sleep. Many reef fishes lie down to sleep.

You aren't running a mechanical filter are you? That will raise nitrate significantly. No filter in a reef, just live rock.

Do water changes at 10% weekly.

Alk should be 8.3-9.3 on the dkh scale.
If you're going to go reef, you'll need to get a calcium test before you get a coral, and set that at 400-450. 420 is good.

I think your wrasse is likely perfectly fine.

[fish cowboy]

Do you have sand on the bottom of your tank or is it bare. I agree it was probably making a cacoon to sleep in. You may want to put a cave of some sort in there so he feels at home if you don't want sand in a quarintine tank. Good luck.

[otrlynn]

Sk8r, this is a "cycled quarantine tank" so yes, I have a mechanincal filter. It has a polyfilter with carbon. The filter bag had been in my display, but the carbon was new yesterday.

[otrlynn]

I actually made an earlier, different post re putting sand in the QT for the wrasse, but no one responded--is this advisable? I have a couple of pieces of PVC in there as well as a couple of food safe new coffee cups for caves (new, but also very well rinsed). I can pull some sand out of my display and put some in a corner. Would this cause problems if it turned out that I had to use copper or another treatment in the tank? My wrasses is still laying on its side behind some pipe...

[Sk8r]

Oh, good for you, otrlynn! Glad you are qt'ing him. No, barebottom and filter is the safest way to go. I was afraid you had 10 nitrate in your main tank. Your water change will fix the nitrate; a little carbon in your filter will handle any ammonia. His coffee cups and pipe will do fine...he's cocooning particularly because he's still a little nervous, likely. But he's doing just fine. When bored, they park and flop. So boredom is his only issue. And when he gets to his tank, he'll be into everything. Wrasses are. He'll eat every pod you can produce and anything else that floats past. You'll want to watch getting fishes smaller than he is. But he'll be your tank character, for sure.

[asm481]

I qt'd my yellow wrasse with a rbermaid dish of sand for it to sleep in. Also came in handy when time came to move to DT! If you medicate your QT then toss the sand out but if all is well give it a place to dig.

[otrlynn]

Unfortunately the wrasse did not make it. I don't know what the problem was but I'd like to try again. I will be even more careful with acclimation and make sure the water parameters in my QT are 100% correct, though they looked pretty good--see above. The long-nosed Hawkfish purchased at the same time looks fine.

[Sk8r]

so sorry to hear that. Usually they do sleep that way, but clearly this guy was sick.

Match salinity to within .001 and ph and alk as exactly as you can. THat will help. They are not a fragile species, and should have come through this fine, even if acclimation was not perfect.