Melanarus Wrasse Died? Confused.

[Brit’s Fish]

I went out of town for the weekend and before I left, all fish were accounted for and doing fine. Hubby was taking care of them while I was gone and he’s done it before, so I can’t imagine anything crazy happened. Be had this Melanarus wrasse for about 7 months and he’s always eaten well and been very active. One thing I did notice was that he’d constantly “pace” against the back goals of the 120 DT he’s been in but all the fish in this tank get along quite well and there’s been no aggression. I’d watch him “pace” and wonder if he was stressed but then he’d change his route sometimes and swim through the multiple caves in the tank. He never even looked at the 8 sexy shrimp in the tank… model citizen. So I was a little shocked to find him dead this evening.
I also feel like he was bloated but I never noticed the bloating before finding him today. The other weird thing is that i have a pretty active clean up crew in this tank (several types of shrimp, urchins, emerald crabs, snails, hermits, worms of different types) and nothing was even snacking on him. Not that I wanted to see him get eaten, it just struck me as odd.
I did a water change last weekend and nothing new has been added for at least 6 weeks, except a couple corals. All the other fish look good & there are no spots on anyone. The only thing that sticks out to me is my Yellow Coris Wrasse looks a little rough too. He does not have any spots but under the full blues (since it’s night already) he looks like he has old scales that are shedding or something? Not sure how else to describe that. Otherwise, he looks fine and is just as active and eating like always.

I have photos of the Melanarus as well, which I’ll post below but they’re a little gruesome.

also, in case anyone saw my other post last week about my clown that died, this is a different tank. It’s been a rough couple weeks for me and my fish.

Warning: Graphic Photos of my fish below

 

[vetteguy53081]

I went out of town for the weekend and before I left, all fish were accounted for and doing fine. Hubby was taking care of them while I was gone and he’s done it before, so I can’t imagine anything crazy happened. Be had this Melanarus wrasse for about 7 months and he’s always eaten well and been very active. One thing I did notice was that he’d constantly “pace” against the back goals of the 120 DT he’s been in but all the fish in this tank get along quite well and there’s been no aggression. I’d watch him “pace” and wonder if he was stressed but then he’d change his route sometimes and swim through the multiple caves in the tank. He never even looked at the 8 sexy shrimp in the tank… model citizen. So I was a little shocked to find him dead this evening.
I also feel like he was bloated but I never noticed the bloating before finding him today. The other weird thing is that i have a pretty active clean up crew in this tank (several types of shrimp, urchins, emerald crabs, snails, hermits, worms of different types) and nothing was even snacking on him. Not that I wanted to see him get eaten, it just struck me as odd.
I did a water change last weekend and nothing new has been added for at least 6 weeks, except a couple corals. All the other fish look good & there are no spots on anyone. The only thing that sticks out to me is my Yellow Coris Wrasse looks a little rough too. He does not have any spots but under the full blues (since it’s night already) he looks like he has old scales that are shedding or something? Not sure how else to describe that. Otherwise, he looks fine and is just as active and eating like always.

I have photos of the Melanarus as well, which I’ll post below but they’re a little gruesome.

also, in case anyone saw my other post last week about my clown that died, this is a different tank. It’s been a rough couple weeks for me and my fish.

Warning: Graphic Photos of my fish below

The bloating may be dropsy or internal issue but often hard to determine especially after 2 hours of death.
I would react with water change but re-test water prior to that. Assure salinity and temperature are NOT elevated as well as ammonia and nitrate. Protruding scales on Yellow coris may suggest a bacterial issue going on.
What test kits are you using ?

 

[Brit’s Fish]

The bloating may be dropsy or internal issue but often hard to determine especially after 2 hours of death.
I would react with water change but re-test water prior to that. Assure salinity and temperature are NOT elevated as well as ammonia and nitrate. Protruding scales on Yellow coris may suggest a bacterial issue going on.
What test kits are you using ?

My temp did go up higher than usual yesterday because it’s been pretty hot in Chicago but it only went up to 79.3F. My salinity is 1.025.
I’m using the Apex for Temp and pH, Hanna for salinity, nitrates and phosphates and Salifert for Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity. I tested the day after my last WC - 24 hours after.
My YCW has had a scale of two here and there look like that since I moved him into this tank 6 months ago. I just noticed it seemed like more than usual tonight. And if I try to get a picture, you can’t see it because I can only tell under the blues and he’s so fast. I’ll try to get a pic though!

 

[vetteguy53081]

My temp did go up higher than usual yesterday because it’s been pretty hot in Chicago but it only went up to 79.3F. My salinity is 1.025.
I’m using the Apex for Temp and pH, Hanna for salinity, nitrates and phosphates and Salifert for Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity. I tested the day after my last WC - 24 hours after.
My YCW has had a scale of two here and there look like that since I moved him into this tank 6 months ago. I just noticed it seemed like more than usual tonight. And if I try to get a picture, you can’t see it because I can only tell under the blues and he’s so fast. I’ll try to get a pic though!

Temp acceptable however nitrate quite high leading to suspicion of water related issue
What test method is this?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yellow Coris Wrasse looks a little rough too. He does not have any spots but under the full blues (since it’s night already) he looks like he has old scales that are shedding or something?

This is kind of the poster child for a flukes infestation. Neobenedenia eggs are really sticky and are easily transported on corals. The six week timeline is alo about right.

Bloating can ocurr post-mortem from decompositional gasses. Long dead fish will even float.
You said the CU"C didn't mess with it, but its tail is all eroded and skin is missing. Bacteria can do that, but it takes some time.

Focusing on the yellow coris, if you see increasingly worsening symptoms, you might consider a prazipro treatment. It would be relatively reef safe. What other fish and corals are in the tank?

Jay

 

[Brit’s Fish]

This is kind of the poster child for a flukes infestation. Neobenedenia eggs are really sticky and are easily transported on corals. The six week timeline is alo about right.

Bloating can ocurr post-mortem from decompositional gasses. Long dead fish will even float.
You said the CU"C didn't mess with it, but its tail is all eroded and skin is missing. Bacteria can do that, but it takes some time.

Focusing on the yellow coris, if you see increasingly worsening symptoms, you might consider a prazipro treatment. It would be relatively reef safe. What other fish and corals are in the tank?

Jay

Hi Jay!
I’m sure that the CUC did begin working on the Melanarus at some point, I’m just used to seeing all of the hermits or emerald crabs all over a fish or snail that has recently passed. I also have no idea how long he was dead before I found him. It could have been fairly recent? There were some spaghetti worms that had grabbed on and the side where the skin was missing was the side that was on the sand, so maybe there were worms that did that. He had an eye missing on that same side. The smell was awful but that didn’t necessarily surprise me.
I definitely did not notice any parts of his tail missing prior to finding him passed yesterday. The only nippy fish in this tank are a pair of MochaVinci clowns and they only care about biting me, so I can’t imagine anyone nipping his tail either.
I’m sure the damage done in the photos was from CUC… like I said, I’ve just never seen them walk away like that.
Again, my concern is of course not that I wanted him to get eaten, I just wanted to be sure that it wasn’t something crazy where even the CUC knew to keep their distance from him.

Anyhow, flukes could certainly be the issue! I would have a really hard time trying to catch the Yellow Coris to give him a freshwater dip but I’d certainly give PraziPro a try. I attached a couple photos I got of him this morning. His tail seems to be a little beat up as well today and he has a couple spots on it that I didn’t notice before last night.

I have mostly soft corals (zoas and mushrooms) and LPS (gonis, blastos & euphyllia) in this tank, along with a large group of Rock Flower nems and a large RBTA. I have Sexy shrimp, cleaner shrimp and peppermint shrimp as well. The ones I’d be the most worried about are the Sexies.

Other fish:
Yellow Coris Wrasse
Orange Back Fairy Wrasse
Ornate Leopard Wrasse
Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias
MochaVinci Clown pair
2 x Springeri Damsels
Blue Green Chromis
Blue Spotted Jawfish
LawnMower Blenny
Yellow Tang
Tomini Tang

Please let me know what you think. I’m going to try to snap some photos of my other fish as well.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Hi Jay!
I’m sure that the CUC did begin working on the Melanarus at some point, I’m just used to seeing all of the hermits or emerald crabs all over a fish or snail that has recently passed. I also have no idea how long he was dead before I found him. It could have been fairly recent? There were some spaghetti worms that had grabbed on and the side where the skin was missing was the side that was on the sand, so maybe there were worms that did that. He had an eye missing on that same side. The smell was awful but that didn’t necessarily surprise me.
I definitely did not notice any parts of his tail missing prior to finding him passed yesterday. The only nippy fish in this tank are a pair of MochaVinci clowns and they only care about biting me, so I can’t imagine anyone nipping his tail either.
I’m sure the damage done in the photos was from CUC… like I said, I’ve just never seen them walk away like that.
Again, my concern is of course not that I wanted him to get eaten, I just wanted to be sure that it wasn’t something crazy where even the CUC knew to keep their distance from him.

Anyhow, flukes could certainly be the issue! I would have a really hard time trying to catch the Yellow Coris to give him a freshwater dip but I’d certainly give PraziPro a try. I attached a couple photos I got of him this morning. His tail seems to be a little beat up as well today and he has a couple spots on it that I didn’t notice before last night.

I have mostly soft corals (zoas and mushrooms) and LPS (gonis, blastos & euphyllia) in this tank, along with a large group of Rock Flower nems and a large RBTA. I have Sexy shrimp, cleaner shrimp and peppermint shrimp as well. The ones I’d be the most worried about are the Sexies.

Other fish:
Yellow Coris Wrasse
Orange Back Fairy Wrasse
Ornate Leopard Wrasse
Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias
MochaVinci Clown pair
2 x Springeri Damsels
Blue Green Chromis
Blue Spotted Jawfish
LawnMower Blenny
Yellow Tang
Tomini Tang

Please let me know what you think. I’m going to try to snap some photos of my other fish as well.

Here are the other guys.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Temp acceptable however nitrate quite high leading to suspicion of water related issue
What test method is this?

I wouldn’t call it a test method… lol. It’s more like I test weekly on the weekends but if I do a water change, I wait at least a day before testing again.

BUT since you asked about testing, this just rang a bell in my head… I dosed Brightwell Phosphate-E about a month ago. My nitrates and phosphates had been stable at 23 and 0.25 for months and then I went away for the 4th and my husband was feeding (over feeding) the fish and they jumped to just under 40 and 0.58. I did a large water change - 45 gallons and dosed the Phos-E thinking it would help. I talked to my LFS about it a couple days later and they told me that the active ingredient is Lanthanum Chloride and how dangerous it could be. I had no idea but again, all the fish seemed to be acting normal and eating normally. The Melanarus acted the same way he always has.
This is the only other thing I’ve done in this tank and it worked very temporarily. My plan going forward has been continuing the larger WCs until I can get it back down.

@Jay Hemdal I’m sorry, I forgot to mention this sooner!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I wouldn’t call it a test method… lol. It’s more like I test weekly on the weekends but if I do a water change, I wait at least a day before testing again.

BUT since you asked about testing, this just rang a bell in my head… I dosed Brightwell Phosphate-E about a month ago. My nitrates and phosphates had been stable at 23 and 0.25 for months and then I went away for the 4th and my husband was feeding (over feeding) the fish and they jumped to just under 40 and 0.58. I did a large water change - 45 gallons and dosed the Phos-E thinking it would help. I talked to my LFS about it a couple days later and they told me that the active ingredient is Lanthanum Chloride and how dangerous it could be. I had no idea but again, all the fish seemed to be acting normal and eating normally. The Melanarus acted the same way he always has.
This is the only other thing I’ve done in this tank and it worked very temporarily. My plan going forward has been continuing the larger WCs until I can get it back down.

@Jay Hemdal I’m sorry, I forgot to mention this sooner!

This may very well be your answer, and reason it kept pointing to water.
For safe phosphate control, I use chemipure blue or elite

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Here are the other guys.

Well, the yellow coris looks a bit bedraggled - could be from fighting or it could be flukes. None of the other fish are showing signs (and anthias are prone to flukes) so I wouldn’t treat with prazipro right now. Watch for flashing/scratching, that can be another sign of flukes.
Jay

 

[Bucs20fan]

I would always yield to the experts here on flukes. Jay just helped me get my regimen down for prazi in my DT. What I will say, is that I lost a Mckoskers wrasse to these flukes and its body looked exactly like your coris wrasse. Random scales missing and lighter color than normal. I will say though, as Jay pointed out, my lyretail anthias were also affected.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Well, the yellow coris looks a bit bedraggled - could be from fighting or it could be flukes. None of the other fish are showing signs (and anthias are prone to flukes) so I wouldn’t treat with prazipro right now. Watch for flashing/scratching, that can be another sign of flukes.
Jay

Thank you for taking another look, Jay!
Is it possible that the Melanarus and Yellow Coris fought? They were about the same size. I guess I may never know for sure!
I think that’s one of the hardest things in this hobby… maybe he was just old too. He also never really had the amazingly bright coloration that I’ve seen in other Melanarus but I always chalked it up to the blue lighting.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

I would always yield to the experts here on flukes. Jay just helped me get my regimen down for prazi in my DT. What I will say, is that I lost a Mckoskers wrasse to these flukes and its body looked exactly like your coris wrasse. Random scales missing and lighter color than normal. I will say though, as Jay pointed out, my lyretail anthias were also affected.

I’m sorry you lost your McCoskers! They’re such pretty fish. I hope that everyone else is doing much better now!

 

[Brit’s Fish]

This is kind of the poster child for a flukes infestation. Neobenedenia eggs are really sticky and are easily transported on corals. The six week timeline is alo about right.

Bloating can ocurr post-mortem from decompositional gasses. Long dead fish will even float.
You said the CU"C didn't mess with it, but its tail is all eroded and skin is missing. Bacteria can do that, but it takes some time.

Focusing on the yellow coris, if you see increasingly worsening symptoms, you might consider a prazipro treatment. It would be relatively reef safe. What other fish and corals are in the tank?

Jay

Hi Jay! @Jay Hemdal I’m resurrecting this thread because my Yellow Coris Wrasse had been doing fine this whole time and just in the last day, he looks terrible. Hes still eating today and as of Friday night, still looked and acted like his normal self. He’s now been having tons of trouble swimming and keeping right side up. He does want to swim but when he does, it’s pretty listless. I’ve been catching him in the acclimation box when it’s time for him to eat and I see him coming towards the front of the tank but I’m not chasing him to catch him. When I let him out, he swims around the whole tank for a little while and looks almost normal, but it doesn’t last.
His stomach is pretty swollen but I have seen him pooping and the poop looks fairly normal, not white and stringy.
I have been feeding him LRS reef frenzy soaked in Metro for the last day at the recommendation of my LFS. They think it’s Uronema, but I’m not sure. He doesn’t have any of the red spots currently. It does look red at the base of his pectoral fins though.
His scales look pretty awful… whitish and as if they’re lifting still. His eyes are still very clear and normal.
Besides him, the tails of my male Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias and my Orange Backed Fairy Wrasse are looking beat up. They both look perfect on their bodies, it’s just their tails that look frayed.
All of my other fish are fine and acting normal. I have a Yellow Tang, Tomini Tang, Blue Spotted Jawfish, Ornate Leopard Wrasse, 2 MochaVinci Clowns, 2 Springeri Damsels & a Blue Green Chromis. I have added a couple of frags (all dipped in Revive) and a Derasa clam in the last month or so.
I’m worried that something is really starting to do a number on my fish and I don’t want to lose any more of them.
If it still might be flukes, I have PraziPro.
Any suggestions would be great!

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Hi Jay! @Jay Hemdal I’m resurrecting this thread because my Yellow Coris Wrasse had been doing fine this whole time and just in the last day, he looks terrible. Hes still eating today and as of Friday night, still looked and acted like his normal self. He’s now been having tons of trouble swimming and keeping right side up. He does want to swim but when he does, it’s pretty listless. I’ve been catching him in the acclimation box when it’s time for him to eat and I see him coming towards the front of the tank but I’m not chasing him to catch him. When I let him out, he swims around the whole tank for a little while and looks almost normal, but it doesn’t last.
His stomach is pretty swollen but I have seen him pooping and the poop looks fairly normal, not white and stringy.
I have been feeding him LRS reef frenzy soaked in Metro for the last day at the recommendation of my LFS. They think it’s Uronema, but I’m not sure. He doesn’t have any of the red spots currently. It does look red at the base of his pectoral fins though.
His scales look pretty awful… whitish and as if they’re lifting still. His eyes are still very clear and normal.
Besides him, the tails of my male Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias and my Orange Backed Fairy Wrasse are looking beat up. They both look perfect on their bodies, it’s just their tails that look frayed.
All of my other fish are fine and acting normal. I have a Yellow Tang, Tomini Tang, Blue Spotted Jawfish, Ornate Leopard Wrasse, 2 MochaVinci Clowns, 2 Springeri Damsels & a Blue Green Chromis. I have added a couple of frags (all dipped in Revive) and a Derasa clam in the last month or so.
I’m worried that something is really starting to do a number on my fish and I don’t want to lose any more of them.
If it still might be flukes, I have PraziPro.
Any suggestions would be great!

Just want to add… oddly enough, after he ate, I let him out of the acclimation box and he’s been actively swimming around the tank for a few hours now. He even managed to catch some food out of the water column. There’s certainly something off about the way he’s swimming because he’s kind of lightly bumping into things as he swims but he is upright, which is an improvement. He is tending to swim with his nose down about half of the time.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Well, given the anthias now looking bedraggled, I’m thinking flukes even more now. You could try giving the yellow wrasse a 5 minute freshwater dip to see if that offers it any relief, or if you see any flukes falling off (may need a microscope to see them though). The wrasse could of course die, but if it improves a few days after the dip, that confirms flukes and you would then dose the tank with prazipro 2x, 8 or 9 days apart.
Yellow coris are really prone to Uronema, but you typically only see that in newly acquired wrasse and it kills pretty quickly.
Jay

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Well, given the anthias now looking bedraggled, I’m thinking flukes even more now. You could try giving the yellow virus a 5 minute freshwater dip to see if that offers it any relief, or if you see any flukes falling off (may need a microscope to see them though). The wrasse could of course die, but if it improves a few days after the dip, that confirms flukes and you would then dose the tank with prazipro 2x, 8 or 9 days apart.
Yellow coris are really prone to Uronema, but you typically only see that in newly acquired wrasse and it kills pretty quickly.
Jay

Thank you, Jay!!

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Well, given the anthias now looking bedraggled, I’m thinking flukes even more now. You could try giving the yellow wrasse a 5 minute freshwater dip to see if that offers it any relief, or if you see any flukes falling off (may need a microscope to see them though). The wrasse could of course die, but if it improves a few days after the dip, that confirms flukes and you would then dose the tank with prazipro 2x, 8 or 9 days apart.
Yellow coris are really prone to Uronema, but you typically only see that in newly acquired wrasse and it kills pretty quickly.
Jay

@Jay Hemdal sadly, my YCW passed away. He had been doing better but I never even got a chance to do a freshwater dip. He had been swimming better, so I let him out of fish jail and he swam fairly normally and happily throughout the tank for several hours. Once I noticed him slowing down again, I went to catch him to get him in the FW dip and I noticed him in the sand where one of my large hermits had gotten ahold of him. He already had a rather large chunk of his side missing and was not doing well. I had to euthanize him, unfortunately. It was heartbreaking.
However, the other two fish which I posted photos of - Orange Back Fairy Wrasse and Lyretail Anthias still look about the same. They’re eating fine and they don’t look any worse, but they don’t look significantly better either.
My question is whether flukes can look a little bit like a fish had a run-in with a bristle worm? Not that there are actual bristles sticking out of their flesh but there are little “tatters” that I can sort of see at just the right angles. I don’t know if I could even get a picture of it.
Could it hurt to do a FW dip on either of these guys to see if anything comes off?
The LFS near me recommended dosing Chemiclean in case of a bacterial infection, but I don’t really feel comfortable with that, especially if that’s not even going to help them.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

@Jay Hemdal sadly, my YCW passed away. He had been doing better but I never even got a chance to do a freshwater dip. He had been swimming better, so I let him out of fish jail and he swam fairly normally and happily throughout the tank for several hours. Once I noticed him slowing down again, I went to catch him to get him in the FW dip and I noticed him in the sand where one of my large hermits had gotten ahold of him. He already had a rather large chunk of his side missing and was not doing well. I had to euthanize him, unfortunately. It was heartbreaking.
However, the other two fish which I posted photos of - Orange Back Fairy Wrasse and Lyretail Anthias still look about the same. They’re eating fine and they don’t look any worse, but they don’t look significantly better either.
My question is whether flukes can look a little bit like a fish had a run-in with a bristle worm? Not that there are actual bristles sticking out of their flesh but there are little “tatters” that I can sort of see at just the right angles. I don’t know if I could even get a picture of it.
Could it hurt to do a FW dip on either of these guys to see if anything comes off?
The LFS near me recommended dosing Chemiclean in case of a bacterial infection, but I don’t really feel comfortable with that, especially if that’s not even going to help them.

Updated photos:

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Flukes are difficult to diagnose visually, and even the FW dip only really shows one species (Neobendenia) the others require a microscope to see. Because Prazipro can be dosed in a DT and is well tolerated, it is really only the cost that comes into play regarding using it as a diagnostic tool - you use it and if the fish get better, then it was flukes, if they don't, it is something else. You just treat the tank 2x, 8 days apart with good aeration

Chemiclean isn't a medication, it is a type of erythromycin that controls cyanobacteria, but has no effect on common bacterial pathogens.

Jay