Sick YellowTail Wrasse help

[warriorcookie]

I've had this guy for a month, he's been very active, hunting for pods in the rocks. I've been adding tiger pods to make sure he's keeping fed.

We were out of town yesterday, so I'm not sure how he was doing, but the day before that he was fine. This morning when the lights came on I saw he was laying in the sand were he normally sleeps, but only half covered. He was breathing, but seemed laboured. Later he was uncovered, but laying there, not moving, other than breathing. My lawnmower blenny took a run at the wrasse, and the wrasse swam away, settling on a brain coral, then on the sand, and just kinda flopped onto his side again.

It looks like he has a reddish spot centered on his side near the tail, about 3/4 of the back. The surface isn't broken or raised, but it is unmistakable.

I added some corals and nassarus snails from fragalot (corals dipped with coral RX), and a bluethroat trigger from LFS- came in on wed, brought home and added to tank on sat.

Otherwise his tankmates are 2x juv false percs, 3x green chromis, bangai cardinal, fairy wrasse (they seem to pay no attention to each other), 2 spot goby (MIA since sat), and a lawnmower blenny. For inverts, 2x rbta, tube anemone, maxima clam, a few small hermit crabs, emerald crabs, and snails.

120gal tank, 150lbs live rock. Skimmer, UV, GFO, Carbon, 80deg, PH 7.99
Updated params coming.

[Cal_stir]

give him some garlic, soak some food in it or if he won't eat just add it to the water, it boosts the immune system and gets him eating, sounds like he got stung or he got a parasite.

[warriorcookie]

Ca 380ppm
Alk 6dkh
Mg 1450ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Ph 8.05
80.7 F


Alk and Ca are low, It's water change day yesterday, but was out of town. I'll be doing my usual 10% today. I have a doser coming to help keep it up and stable, I know it's a problem but doubt it's related to this.

He has never eaten the mysis or cyclop-eeze that I feed. I always add garlic to the food, but how much do I put in the water as a dose? It seems he only wants to eat the copepods...

[Leah]

Or someone took a bite out of him.

[Cal_stir]

Those params are OK, whats your salinity at?, put a couple teaspoons per 100 gallons, you can't really overdose garlic, fresh garlic is actually better, I put a whole clove in before just crush it and strain out the chunks.

[warriorcookie]

Lol! Salinity isn't important is it? Doh!
It's 1.025 on the nose (refractometer calibrated with 35ppt cal solution)

I've seen the lawnmower blenny take a few runs at him this morning. He has a dirty hate for the Nassarius Snails when they surface, never seen him have it in for any of the other fish.

[Cal_stir]

Your water is OK, should get your ca and alk up a bit but thats not hurting your fish, he could be stressed if he is being bullied.

[warriorcookie]

So, will moving him to quarantine stress him out even more? Should I just keep an eye on things and just let him lay there? Moving the blenny isn't really an option, no way I can net him and I dont really have anything to bait a fishtrap with that the blenny would go for....

[Cal_stir]

Unfortunately moving him may cause him more stress, if you do move him try to use the water in your tank to fill your qt if possible then you don't have to acclimate him.

[FishyFishy!]

Originally Posted by warriorcookie

So, will moving him to quarantine stress him out even more? Should I just keep an eye on things and just let him lay there? Moving the blenny isn't really an option, no way I can net him and I dont really have anything to bait a fishtrap with that the blenny would go for....

I would make sure he gets into quarantine soon. He will be less stressed in there i'm sure. If you leave him in the DT other fish will start picking on him, which will most likely lead to death. Make sure you use yout tank water so that you don't have to acclimate him. Are you using any filters running on your main system that you can swap over to a QT?