New Radiant Wrasse OK????

SaraB

SaraB

Coral Killer
I posted this over in the Reef Fish forum as well, but I'm looking for input on my new Radiant Wrasse. I purchased it on Thursday night and did the normal fish acclimation process. The fish was added at 11 PM and did a little swimming and proceeded to bury itself into the sand. I did not see the fish until about 11:30 AM today (Saturday) when it decided to come out from the sandbed. He did not move around too much and kept laying on it's side and breathing real fast. When the MH came on around 3 PM he disappeared again and I have not seen him since. This does not seem like normal behavior ... but I remember reading something about wrasses and how they are slow to acclimate to a new tank. Is he going to be okay? Is there anything I can do?

Also, Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia are all at 0 and PH is 8.21.

Thanks,

Sara
 
Lying on his side? Never once seen mine do that.

Where did you get him from? I presume you did not QT, right? Mine I got from Ali when he left, so it had been in his tank for a while, 8mos I think. When he got out of the bag he immediately started eating my monti nudi infestation, and continued to do so for about 8 hours until he went and slept off the party for 2 days. Then he reappeared and has been normal since.

But he'd been in an established tank already.

Disappearing into the sand for a while wouldn't worry me. The lying on its side and breathing fast would.
 
The fish was purchased from Deep Reef Aquatic's. No, I did not QT as I my QT tank is full of Acros with AEFW's.
 
Could be a problem. Deep Reef keeps their fish at 1.016 or so. Hopefully, you acclimated SLOWLY! Keep us posted...
 
In the future, you'll want to keep in mind that 1.016 to 1.025 (assumption) here in under a day is too fast.
 
Sara, I've bought wrasses from DR before, but did a real slow acclimate. Mine also took a long time to come out, but they're doing fine now.

Hope he comes back out soon!:)

Boyd
 
The general rule of thumb is raise .001-.002/hour. I always ask what SG the fish is coming from, cause I know it's probably going into a tank much higher. Even bringing your own refractometer is best (they're usually just guessing...).
 
That's too bad that they don't inform customers to do a super slow acclimation. That's the 2nd purchase from them and neither time did they mention it. The other fish did survive and showed no stress.
 
Doug Lehman taught me a valuable lesson when buying anything............

He suggests to test the water while acclimating, so you know what the LFS (or reefer) water quality is!! :D

I never thought of doing this, but you'd be surprised to see what some people are doing!

Boyd :)
 
Sarah, some wrasses will spends days in the sand, before spending a lot of time out swimmimg.
May have nothing to do with how you acclimated it. Any fish in the tank that may be territorial with it, even if you haven't seen any agression? Sometimes a new fish can be bullied and hide in the sand.
Might just need a little more time to be comfortable.
Try and feed him some food next time you see him out.
 
FWIW, I have seen the wrasses at Sho Tank do this. I went up to one guy that works there (not Matt, but the other one) and said "hey, I think those wrasses are dead." He then went over to the tank, touched the wrasse and the fish got up and started swimming around like everything was fine. He said that they do that sometimes, but I don't know why, as I didn't ask for an explanation on this.
 
Sara - FWIW

The tank that Jeff keeps the Radiant, Leopard, Christmas, Redtail and other Coris and Halicoris (sp?) wrasses in also houses his stock of anemones. He keeps the anemone and coral tanks at 1.024-25. The holding tanks in back that are fish only are kept at the lower salinity. Your aclimation should have been sufficient.

Personally, I acclimate fish for no more than 30 minutes. I use a small piece of airline tubing and drip acclimate them in a large bucket. I set the drip to roughly double the initial water volume every 10 minutes. Beyound that I worry about temperature drop and oxygen depletion.

When I added a H. Biocelatus (sp?) (looks like a blue Christmas wrasse), I did not see him during the day for nearly 3 weeks. We started to (and still do) refer to him as the "daylight savings" wrasse. He would spend the greater part of the day when the lights were on buried in the sand under or behind the rocks only coming out in the evening or early morning. After those three weeks getting used to his new surroundings he has been out and about just fine.

Lastly, if the fish has shown no sign of improvement today give Jeff a call. He should be able to provide some other hints or help with the health of the fish.

Radiants are pretty hardy fish. I've seen them looking the way you describe - listless and breathing heavy - and come back just fine. Hope this works out as well for you as I have seen for others.
 
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Every time I've been in DR, the wrasses you list for sale have been in the holding tanks in back. 30min to go from 1.014 to 1.025 is a huge risk with any fish. I'm sure it works for some, but it's not something to advise, especially on a substantial investment and fairly rare animal (in the hobby anyway) like the Radiant Wrasse.

None of this helps Sara with this fish, of course, but in case others find this thread searching on Radiant Wrasse it is worth saying, I think.

Sara, have you seen it out since posting?
 
ostrow - I agree that debating acclimation techniques will not help Sara and her fish, everyone has their own oppinion. I was providing information on my experiences to try and exclude a potential cause of the condition that the fish is in and provide Sara with the reassurance that she did not do something wrong by not bringing a refractometer and test kits with her to the store. I was at DR and saw this specific fish in the anemone tank (put there specifically because the tank has a sandbed) last Thursday so I would think her acclimation of this fish was fine. By removing acclimation as a potential cause, Sara can focus her thoughts to something else.

Sara, additional questions to be answered include: What tankmates does this fish have, Have you seen this fish getting picked on by other fish in the tank? You listed water params that look just fine, maybe the fish just needs some time.

Keep us posted and add a picture or 2 if you can - the Radient wrasse is one of my favorites and I never tire of seeing them in tanks.
 
The Radiant Wrasse was not in those small holding tanks in the back room. It came from a stand alone tank located in the front room ... but near the back.

Also, I have not seen the wrasse since Saturday afternoon.

The other tank inhabitants are pretty "calm". They include the following:

2 red firefish
1 purple firefish
1 Midas Blenny
1 Blue Accessor
1 Mandarin
2 Onyx clowns
1 Rainford Goby
1 Tangaroa Goby

One Onyx was not too happy when he got close to their Anemone on Thursday when introduced, but there were no other fish even interested in it when it appeared on Saturday.
 
Also, I did call DR at noon on Saturday afternoon when the fish appeared to be in stress. I spoke to Brett and he asked that I test the water for the above parameters and I called them back with those details. He said to wait it out a bit and try to feed it when I see it again. At what point should I call back and should I talk to Jeff?
 
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