White spots appear and disappear on wrasse.

[Acros]

I moved around the rocks today to add some corals and tweak my rockscape. My read head solon fairy wrasse is laying on the sand ever since and is breathing heavy. It is the only fish affected.

I fed the fish twice afterwards and it ate without any hesitation.

I have a six-line wrasse (1"), longfin fairy wrasse (2"), lawnmower blenny (4"), and a new chalk bass(1") who are all doing fine. There are no signs of aggression in the tank. No chasing around.

My parameters are looking good:

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrites - 0 ppm
Nitrates - Can't really tell from the API test kit, looks 0 to me.

The tank is 3+ months old.

I did a 20% water change today before moving the rocks around.

I see some white spots on the fish's head. I have seen them a few weeks back when this fish got stressed (while adding it to the tank) and it faded away after some time. My camera couldn't do any better.

Under blue lights.

Under white lights.

White spots.

#Fishexperts

 

[evolved]

Discussion here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/red-head-solon-fairy-wrasse-stressed.757213/

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The fact that the fish ate well after the event is a really good sign - if it was laying on its side due to illness, it wouldn't feed well. I think its just a stress reaction. Possibly, your wrasse got spooked and hit some rocks, that might account for the spots. Fish handle stress in different ways. I recently revamped my home tank, and did a massive water change and the entire time I was moving rocks and changing water, my Darwin clown just kept biting my hand...the stress of my hand in the water wasn't enough to keep him from trying to kill me (grin).

Jay