New yellow coris wrasses keep dying

[ppinto1124]

I’ve recently purchased a yellow coris wrasse from marine collectors and followed their acclamation protocol and noticed that the fish was floating upside down and not moving much but I figured it was just stressed from shipping so I put it in my tank with my other fish which are all either from marine collectors or quarantined by me with copper and prazi. When I added it to the tank it sank right to the bottom and started floating upside down and pretty much stayed like that until the next morning when I found it dead.

They were nice enough to send me another one and I figured I might as well get a midas blenny too. I put both of them in the tank the wrasse quickly buried itself in the sand and the blenny hid in the rocks. The blenny is still hiding because my tomini tang has been going after it but it comes out to eat and seems to be doing fine. The new wrasse made an appearance after a few days and is now floating upside down just like the first one. I don’t know why this keeps happening. Everything else in my tank is thriving I have acros, euphyllia, all doing well
Temp is 77
Ph 8.2
Alk 8.4
Calcium 450
Mag 1400
Nitrate 10
Phosphate .04
I do 10% weekly water changes
All my other fish are fat and happy with no signs of disease. Does anyone have any idea what’s happening? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[nereefpat]

Welcome to R2R!

Wrasses aren't the best shippers. The yellow "coris" and it's cousins hide and sleep in the sand.

How did you acclimate the wrasse after shipping?

There is also an issue with wrasses that we are calling Unknown Neurological Wrasse Disease, discussed here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/unknown-neurological-wrasse-disease-unwd.901856/

 

[ppinto1124]

I followed their protocol which seems pretty standard. I floated the bags with the lights off for 30min then in a bucket with an air stone I drip acclimated them with a fast drip until the water volume doubled. I removed half of that water then repeated that process two more times. The drip acclimation probably took 30 minutes. The only difference between the two fish was that with the first wrasse I did not use an air stone.

I will definitely check out the discussion about that Neurological Disease. Thank you for the help I really appreciate it!

Also the second fish did not make it

 

[nereefpat]

Also the second fish did not make it

Darn. Sorry.

Even though some sellers suggest drip acclimating, that method is very hard on shipped fish. The reason is that the water in the bag will have ammonia in it, since the fish has been in the bag for about a day. While the bag is sealed, the pH of the water is low enough that ammonia exists as non-toxic ammonium. As you open the bag and introduce air via airstone or even by dripping new water, the ammonium converts to the ammonia form. Best practice is actually to just temperature acclimate and plop the fish into water of similar salinity. Now, that may not be the problem.

If the fish can't seem to get its bearings, or is spinning, that is the neurological issue. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about that. And, shipping is pretty hard on wrasses in general.

 

[ppinto1124]

Darn. Sorry.

Even though some sellers suggest drip acclimating, that method is very hard on shipped fish. The reason is that the water in the bag will have ammonia in it, since the fish has been in the bag for about a day. While the bag is sealed, the pH of the water is low enough that ammonia exists as non-toxic ammonium. As you open the bag and introduce air via airstone or even by dripping new water, the ammonium converts to the ammonia form. Best practice is actually to just temperature acclimate and plop the fish into water of similar salinity. Now, that may not be the problem.

If the fish can't seem to get its bearings, or is spinning, that is the neurological issue. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about that. And, shipping is pretty hard on wrasses in general.

 

[Lavey29]

I lost 80% of my fish on 3 separate orders from marine collectors within 48 hours. They are terrible. I picked the fish up in person to. They refused to let me inside to see the quality of their operation. I then bought identical fish from another LFS that does their own in house QT also and 100% success rate. I highly recommend to avoid marine collectors.

 

[ppinto1124]

I was just watching polo reefs new video today where he said the exact same thing about the ph raising causing the ammonia to become toxic during acclimation. So I’m kinda curious why they recommend an air stone but I also think they add some kind of ammonia remover to the bag. I think I’m going to stay away from ordering wrasses online for now. I can’t deal with another death lol. I currently have a melanurus wrasse in a medicated QT right now that I got from a LFS and it’s doing really well so I’ll stick with that for now.

Also the first time this wrasse popped out of the sand yesterday before it died I happened to be doing some work on the tank and I had the lid moved slightly and it must have scared my watchman goby because it was actually pretty big and the goby jumped out right in front of me!! Luckily it’s still alive but I’ve just been having bad luck with my tank this week.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[ppinto1124]

I lost 80% of my fish on 3 separate orders from marine collectors within 48 hours. They are terrible. I picked the fish up in person to. They refused to let me inside to see the quality of their operation. I then bought identical fish from another LFS that does their own in house QT also and 100% success rate. I highly recommend to avoid marine collectors.

wow that’s crazy. In the back of my mind I always wondered if the really intense qt that they do coupled with immediately shipping the fish out would be too much for a lot of fish to handle. I think I’m going to stick to my LFS and qt myself for now.

 

[Marine Collectors]

Hey, @ppinto1124 we're sorry to see you had issues with the second one, that's really bizarre. It is true that wrasses don't ship well, and it is possible that there was an issue with FedEx. Unfortunately, it's the case with all couriers that their employees don't always handle the boxes with extreme care like they should. To address the concern about ammonia and pH change, all of our fish are packed with an ammonia blocker to circumvent that problem.
How are the rest of the fish you got from us doing?

If you want to try a third time, we have another batch of yellow/purple wrasse that are undergoing quarantine. Just send us an email and we can get you taken care of. Maybe third time will be the charm.

 

[mues]

I have two yellows in my tank. Probably not preferred method, but i floated for 10 minutes and then just released them into DT. They stress easy and dive as soon as they hit the DT. Both have been in for several months and survived their rather rapid acclimation. Absolutely love those fish though. Hope you have better luck next go around

 

[nereefpat]

To address the concern about ammonia and pH change, all of our fish are packed with an ammonia blocker to circumvent that problem.

What product are you using for that?

 

[nereefpat]

all of our fish are packed with an ammonia blocker to circumvent that problem.

What product blocks ammonia?