Upside down wrasse, help!

[SoReefer]

Hey all, I have a Scott’s fairy wrasse that has something wrong with it. Initially, it was randomly doing cannonball rolls in the water. Now it’s just laying upside down on the sand. Has anyone experienced this or know what’s going on? Would love to hear your thoughts and tips.

water parameters are stable and good. This is the only fish I have that is acting like this. The others are normal.

 

[joeoliver]

Is it a new addition to your tank or did you add other new fish?

I have a naoko wrasse that started dive bombing when I added another fairy wrasse to my tank. it did it quite a bit in the beginning probably because of stress. now it only does it in the evening when lights are about to go out. perhaps now it does it to establish dominance and/or mate.

as far as sleeping upside down, it looks concerning, but maybe it's fine and that's the only spot it found (especially if it's a new addition to the tank). both my fairies sleep in the rock work.

i hope yours is just asleep and just needs some time to adapt to the environment. keep us posted.

 

[ndrwater]

Is it breathing heavy, or "normal"
This does seem odd, but fish can be dumb

 

[Dooly]

Look up unknown neurological wrasse disease on r2r. When they start to tumble/twirl it’s usually on its way out.

 

[drexel]

Most likely a spinal injury running into the glass, which can happen with wrasses (especially hairy and flashers). I lost my carpenters this way and it really sucked.


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[Jimbo327]

Not a good sign. Mine “swam” strangely, and didn’t make it. Do you see it feeding? If it is not eating, it’s not going to live long.

 

[fishboi]

I have the same fairy wrasse that did that too. She was about 2” when I got her swimming fine one day then started doing all that weird thing. I thought she was a goner for sure. For some strange reason during that time whenever she eats she would only eat upside down and sleep upside down in cave. Fast forward 2 years now she’s huge, kinda revert back to normal, and still doing great. So yours might 1 day be back to normal as long as it eats.

 

[SoReefer]

Is it a new addition to your tank or did you add other new fish?

I have a naoko wrasse that started dive bombing when I added another fairy wrasse to my tank. it did it quite a bit in the beginning probably because of stress. now it only does it in the evening when lights are about to go out. perhaps now it does it to establish dominance and/or mate.

as far as sleeping upside down, it looks concerning, but maybe it's fine and that's the only spot it found (especially if it's a new addition to the tank). both my fairies sleep in the rock work.

i hope yours is just asleep and just needs some time to adapt to the environment. keep us posted.

Thanks for the feedback. It’s the newest addition but for the first two weeks it was normal. Then all a sudden this happened.

 

[SoReefer]

Is it breathing heavy, or "normal"
This does seem odd, but fish can be dumb

It’s a bit faster than normal but not extremely rapid.

 

[SoReefer]

Look up unknown neurological wrasse disease on r2r. When they start to tumble/twirl it’s usually on its way out.

Thanks. Just read up on it!

 

[SoReefer]

Not a good sign. Mine “swam” strangely, and didn’t make it. Do you see it feeding? If it is not eating, it’s not going to live long.

it tries to eat but it isn’t able to catch the food. Seems almost uncoordinated.

 

[SoReefer]

I have the same fairy wrasse that did that too. She was about 2” when I got her swimming fine one day then started doing all that weird thing. I thought she was a goner for sure. For some strange reason during that time whenever she eats she would only eat upside down and sleep upside down in cave. Fast forward 2 years now she’s huge, kinda revert back to normal, and still doing great. So yours might 1 day be back to normal as long as it eats.

Hopefully it has the same experience. But so far it can’t catch the food.

 

[ndrwater]

Look up unknown neurological wrasse disease on r2r. When they start to tumble/twirl it’s usually on its way out.

This is exactly what I was thinking .. why I asked about the rapid breathing..
Fingers crossed for you, but .........

 

[Jimbo327]

maybe try a acclimation box and drop more food in there for it to eat something.

 

[shootingstar_reef]

I had a heliocheres do something similar ...I would anticipate needing to euthanize it ;'(