Wrasse suddenly died :(

SynDen

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#1
So weird event last night. I got home from work and fed the fish like I do every night. All the fish were very active and eating fine. About an hour later I did a small water change on the tank like I do every week. When I turned the pumps back on I looked and saw my carpenter wrasse suddenly go belly up and float to the bottom of the tank. She had been swimming around and looking good just moments before and then suddenly and instantly dead.
I tested the water before putting it in the tank just to make sure all parms were exactly the same and they were. All temp, sal and ph were perfect. The only thing that went in the ro water was salt. The water is circulated with a powerhead and heated. The only thing I changed recently on the RO system was the carbon block and micron filter.
I tested the water after the water change as well and parms are unchanged and holding steady. All other fish look fine and swimming around, inverts look good and corals open and doing good.
Needless to say I am completely mystified about the wrasse. Never seen a fish die so instantaneously and she was one of my favorite fish.
Anybody have any thoughts as to possible causes?
 

xxHLTxx

Detritus
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#2
i had a carpenter wrasse actually die the same way. Mine wasn't a water change... but i moved a few frag trays around in the tank and replaced some frags. Wrasse was fine prior and swimming, once i starting moving stuff it went and hid in the sand, found it an hour later being pulled out of the sand by my fire and cleaner shrimp.

only conclusion i had was it got scared and either had a heart attack or died of shock? not sure exactly tho but sounds the same as yours...
 

xsocali

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#3
I bought a wrasse at the lfs and they netted him real easy, basically swam into the net.And when placed in the plasitic box he died instantly.The owner said that he seen that before and it was stress.
 

SynDen

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#4
Thats weird, so they are prone to sudden unexplained heart attacks? Thats kind of troublesome, makes me fearful of doing tank maintenance. Any ideas if they are less prone to this if they are in a group of other wrasses? Was planing on doing a 3 female 1 male harem of carpenters and wondering if in that kind of group they might be more hardy and less prone to instant death like that
 

jahmic

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#5
That's odd...but not uncommon. I've lost cichlids and killifish in similar situations in the past.

Regarding wrasses...many of mine seemed to be easily startled when I get in the tank. That being said, I've had my yellow coris for 2 years without incident and keep a red velvet fairy and a red lined wrasse. I also had a Lubbock's that used to eat from my hand. My yellow coris does sometimes...but my blenny usually chases him away before he gets a chance.

One thing I've found that helps keep fish from jumping out when you get in the tank for maintenance: Train your fish to associate your hands in the tank with food. Fish that used to dive into rocks or in the sand eventually end up swarming my hand or cleaning tools when I get in the tank. Put some frozen in your hand next time you go to work on the tank...and make it a habit. They will eventually associate the "intrusion" with feeding time (rather than an attempt at being captured/ eaten) and should act MUCH less stressed whenever you work on your tank.

Fish are smarter than we give them credit for...a little effort goes a long way in keeping them happy.
 
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SynDen

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#6
jahmic;298973 said:
That's odd...but not uncommon. I've lost cichlids and killifish in similar situations in the past.

Regarding wrasses...many of mine seemed to be easily startled when I get in the tank. That being said, I've had my yellow coris for 2 years without incident and keep a red velvet fairy and a red lined wrasse. I also had a Lubbock's that used to eat from my hand. My yellow coris does sometimes...but my blenny usually chases him away before he gets a chance.

One thing I've found that helps keep fish from jumping out when you get in the tank for maintenance: Train your fish to associate your hands in the tank with food. Fish that used to dive into rocks or in the sand eventually end up swarming my hand or cleaning tools when I get in the tank. Put some frozen in your hand next time you go to work on the tank...and make it a habit. They will eventually associate the "intrusion" with feeding time (rather than an attempt at being captured/ eaten) and should act MUCH less stressed whenever you work on your tank.

Fish are smarter than we give them credit for...a little effort goes a long way in keeping them happy.
That is a great idea I will have to start doing that, thanks for the suggestion
 

jda123

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#7
Cyanide caught fish can be extremely fragile and can quickly suffer whatever the fish equivalent of a stroke. It is of little consequence since they will not be very long lived anyway. Where did you get it?

If any of these fish were long-term captives (like 6 months or more), then it was probably not cyanide. Did you have it long?
 

SynDen

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#8
I have had it about a month and a half. Got it from Bush on that big fish group by he did in Jan/Feb, so no idea where or who he got them from or how they were collected. I had actually gotten 2 from him at the time. The male lived about a week and then suddenly died as well, but since I had only had him a week I just attributed it to shipping stress. The female however has seemed healthy and happy the whole time
 

SynDen

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#9
So curious if any fish was potentially collected via cyanide, will they recover to full eventually or are they permanently damaged? If I were to keep one in QT for say a few months and minimized their stress levels as much as possible would they eventually be more stable?
 

jahmic

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#10
I think that's debatable...but overall the consensus seems to be that they do suffer permanent vascular damage to their gills which makes them more fragile. An article on Wiki estimate 70-90% of all fish collected in the Philippines are collected using cyanide...can't say how accurate that is, but if it's true...carpenter wrasses are from that region, FYI.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-01/sp/index.php
 

jda123

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#11
Yup. There is no way to really know. I almost wish that I did not bring this up since there is nothing actionable that you can do. My only advice is to buy fish from a store/supplier that values their reputation and will not buy from cyanide-known collectors. There are good ones out there... and known bad ones.
 

jahmic

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#12
Lol yea...it's one of those taboo topics that seem to cause a ****storm when it comes up.

I don't even know where you would begin to find the information to track this down...there's a long chain of handlers between the fish being removed from the ocean and placed in your tank, and sudden unexplained deaths often look to cyanide as a scapegoat.

Here's an interesting article on detection methods that wholesalers could use to identify cyanide-collected fish. Hopefully it catches on (or already has) and they can move towards correcting this problem

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blo...detection-in-marine-fish-is-it-a-game-changer
 

jda123

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#13
I have formulated my own personal thoughts on what local and online places have good fish with good chain of custody, but I will never share my opinions on this in public. There are for-sure online places that have good reps who pretty much avoid the cyanide collectors completely, at least as much as they know about it - they are large, so this is easy. I think that they are some locally that do a great job, at least IMO.

If I know that a store in town only gets fish from SDC, for example, I will only buy fish from them that I know are from areas where cyanide is not used (florida, hawaii/marshalls, australia, red sea, etc.), but even then, there is a chance somebody did use them. I will stay away from the "generic south pacific" stuff if I don't know the wholesaler.

Direct shipments from Florida or Hawaii are the best, but I only know a few in town that do this (everybody should, but it takes more work)... but I have also not been everywhere. Example - a Powder Blue Tang from a Hawaii direct collector will typically never (or very rarely) have disease, won't be a a-hole more than an average tang and will do very well. The same fish from Indo/SouthPacific can be an overly-aggressive jerk, very prone to ich (starting in the potentially cyanide damaged gills) and might be a problem for years.

IMO, cost does not really enter into play here, either. Good fish can be cheap and bad fish can be expensive.
 

scchase

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#14
The worst is when you want a fish that only comes from areas that are have high cyanide use, for me the Blue Spotted Angel
 

SynDen

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#15
Ya thus my dilema, really want a harem of carpenters but seems like it is not worth it given that they come from indo/Philippines area. Guess I will have to rethink my stock list yet again and find a more responsible choice
 

jahmic

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#16
Yep...I've resorted to only purchasing fish from areas where cyanide use is either rare or relatively nonexistent. I suppose you can never know for sure...but I'll take whatever small assurance I can get.
 

jda123

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#17
TIP: people who guarantee their fish for 14 days, or more, are typically pretty sure that they don't have cyanide collectors.
 

SynDen

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#18
Well after doing some looking it appears that instead of carpenter's maybe I should try and find a harem of mccosker's flasher wrasses, with an emphasis on finding a group from Australia region. Any thoughts on that? To close to the same type or to hard to discern where they from?
 
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MartinsReef

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#20
How dose that happen I never seen that befor

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 
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