Wrasse died in QT

Kruss7

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Hey, I have a 30g quarantine tank, it has a heater, hob filter and wavemaker. The tank has many pvc hiding spots for the fish.

Up until tonight the tank contained
- 1 small clownfish
- 1 small hi fin red handed goby
- 1 Midas blenny
- 1 Carpenters Wrasse

Here are my parameters

Ammonia - Badge is still yellow
Nitrate - 2ppm
Nitrite - 0
PH - 8
Salinity 35ppm
Copper - 1.93 ppm (Hannah Tester)
Temp 79

The fish were on the 29th day of copper treatment (Copper Power), copper was originally raised over a 5 day period. All fish were eating very well. The fish had also been treated with a focus/metro/food blend starting at day 14.

When feeding I noticed the wrasse was not out, he was normally the first to get to the food. I looked for him and noticed him hiding. I let him be and came back to the tank later to see him lying on his side breathing extremely heavily. I tested copper levels again to make sure they weren’t too high. I observed for 20 minutes, only to see his condition worsen. At this point I decided to give him a fresh water dip to see if I could help him, I heated the water to 79 and made sure it had propped aeration for 30 minutes. The fish was then placed in the dip for 4 minutes at which point I placed him back into the tank. I held him upright to get water into his gills and he gave a little kick of his tail and perished. Every other fish in the tank is still acting completely normal. The freshwater dip did not seem to flush out any flukes.

I’m wondering in future what I could have done differently or in the future and if I should be worried about the other fish.
 

Timfish

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So sorry for your loss! :( Your fish could easily have had a problem before you acquired it. Unfortunately our ability to test for fish for problems is very rudimentary, we can't even do a simple blood test. (For what it's worth I prefere to use an oversized UV sterilizer in my QT.)
 

threebuoys

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Was the wrasse eating as well as the other fish while in quarantine? Since all of the other fish are doing well, and the wrasse showed no other symptoms, perhaps he slowly starved. From time to time I've had this problem with new fish that seem to be doing well. They seem to eat, but sometimes not as aggressively as others, and are very active until all of a sudden they aren't. Sounds like you did everything you should to prevent problems. Really no way of knowing unfortunately.
 

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