What killed my wrasse?

[antfish15]

Woke up to my fish dying on the sand bed.. I asked around and my LFS didn’t think it was Velvet, he thought my clownfish attacked my wrasse.
What do you guys think?

Some additional context:
- I have two ocellaris clownfishes and 1 purple firefish that are still perfectly healthy in the tank
-tank is about 5 months old, 40 gallons
-I have lost 4 other fish in the past 5-6 weeks, and I didn’t notice any disease on any of the other 4 so I chalked it up as natural deaths, but now I’m thinking it could be something in the water? But my firefish and clownfish have survived through all 4 of those deaths so that confuses me


The first two photos are when it was still alive, and the second two photos are when it passed about 4 hours later.

 

[tbrown]

I'm curious, the missing scales - was that side the side it was laying on in the sand? Those almost look like CUC marks

 

[antfish15]

I'm curious, the missing scales - was that side the side it was laying on in the sand? Those almost look like CUC marks

Tbh I don’t remember which side he was laying on..

 

[vetteguy53081]

Woke up to my fish dying on the sand bed.. I asked around and my LFS didn’t think it was Velvet, he thought my clownfish attacked my wrasse.
What do you guys think?

Some additional context:
- I have two ocellaris clownfishes and 1 purple firefish that are still perfectly healthy in the tank
-tank is about 5 months old, 40 gallons
-I have lost 4 other fish in the past 5-6 weeks, and I didn’t notice any disease on any of the other 4 so I chalked it up as natural deaths, but now I’m thinking it could be something in the water? But my firefish and clownfish have survived through all 4 of those deaths so that confuses me


The first two photos are when it was still alive, and the second two photos are when it passed about 4 hours later.

Hard to tell with dead fish but looks to be both bite marks and bacterial
If any others in tank, how do they look?

 

[antfish15]

Woke up to my fish dying on the sand bed.. I asked around and my LFS didn’t think it was Velvet, he thought my clownfish attacked my wrasse.
What do you guys think?

Some additional context:
- I have two ocellaris clownfishes and 1 purple firefish that are still perfectly healthy in the tank
-tank is about 5 months old, 40 gallons
-I have lost 4 other fish in the past 5-6 weeks, and I didn’t notice any disease on any of the other 4 so I chalked it up as natural deaths, but now I’m thinking it could be something in the water? But my firefish and clownfish have survived through all 4 of those deaths so that confuses me


The first two photos are when it was still alive, and the second two photos are when it passed about 4 hours later.

Hard to tell with dead fish but looks to be both bite marks and bacterial
If any others in tank, how do they look?

My two clownfish and purple firefish are perfectly fine with no signs of stress or marks

 

[slingfox]

You should look into quarantining your fish. If it is not disease then you can do an ICP to test for contaminants and voltage meter to make sure you don’t have stray electricity. To determine whether it is fish aggression you can set up a camera to record how the fish behave when you are not around.

 

[antfish15]

You should look into quarantining your fish. If it is not disease then you can do an ICP to test for contaminants and voltage meter to make sure you don’t have stray electricity. To determine whether it is fish aggression you can set up a camera to record how the fish behave when you are not around.

Definitely will do an ICP test soon. Do you think if it was stray electricity my other 3 fish could survive it?

 

[tbrown]

How old was the wrasse?

 

[antfish15]

How old was the wrasse?

I had it for about a week

 

[JumboShrimp]

I assume you have never actually seen the clown attacking other fish? "If" that is the cause, when do you suspect that is happening? Can you set up a camera and try to see if it's happening when you're away from the tank, or at night?

 

[vetteguy53081]

My two clownfish and purple firefish are perfectly fine with no signs of stress or marks

Clown fish are prime suspect for bite marks. I rule out water as a suspect cause as other fish would show signs. Clowns will be on their best behavior in your presence then do the worse behind your back as they are territorial

 

[antfish15]

I assume you have never actually seen the clown attacking other fish? "If" that is the cause, when do you suspect that is happening? Can you set up a camera and try to see if it's happening when you're away from the tank, or at night?

Yes correct, I have personally never seen them be aggressive towards other fish, however, there is definitely a chance they are aggressive at night.. My fire fish does live in the rock during the night so that would explain why they haven’t been able to get to him

I will look into getting a camera

 

[slingfox]

Yes correct, I have personally never seen them be aggressive towards other fish, however, there is definitely a chance they are aggressive at night.. My fire fish does live in the rock during the night so that would explain why they haven’t been able to get to him

I will look into getting a camera

The Wyze cameras on Amazon are pretty economical. There are holders for those cameras sold on the big aquarium supply websites.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Woke up to my fish dying on the sand bed.. I asked around and my LFS didn’t think it was Velvet, he thought my clownfish attacked my wrasse.
What do you guys think?

Some additional context:
- I have two ocellaris clownfishes and 1 purple firefish that are still perfectly healthy in the tank
-tank is about 5 months old, 40 gallons
-I have lost 4 other fish in the past 5-6 weeks, and I didn’t notice any disease on any of the other 4 so I chalked it up as natural deaths, but now I’m thinking it could be something in the water? But my firefish and clownfish have survived through all 4 of those deaths so that confuses me


The first two photos are when it was still alive, and the second two photos are when it passed about 4 hours later.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

In addition to the other comments;

the other losses weren’t “natural deaths”, something else is going on here. The fish are dying due to some issue, likely multiple issues.

Can you post a clear video of the remaining fish under white lights? Sometimes we can see something that you are missing.

If you have corals and invertebrates in the tank that are doing well, skip the ICP test, as anything that it might show as being off enough to kill fish would be killing your invertebrates first.

As a general thought - fish dying over weeks, and not all species being affected can often be traced back to a fluke infection.