Terrible Advice Tuesdays: Don’t Let This Tricky Fish Fool You
Category: Fish Disease & Quarantine, Reef Enthusiast, Reef Junkie, Tank Dabbler
Tagged as: dying fish, flasher wrasse, terrible advice tuesdays
Tagged as: dying fish, flasher wrasse, terrible advice tuesdays
Terrible advice Tuesdays: If you see a flasher wrasse lying on its side, or against a rock, it’s dying or sick.
The rest of the story: A flasher wrasse lying on its side or lying against a rock COULD be dying or sick. However…this “playing dead” behavior is normal for flasher wrasses when they are stressed. I’ve also seen flasher wrasses display this behavior when they are startled from someone approaching a tank too fast.
Therefore, if you see a flasher wrasse lying on its side, know that it could be sick, OR it could be acting completely normal. You’ll have to give the wrasse time to de-stress or no longer be frightened before you can proceed with your assessment of the fish.
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Og wow!!!. i thought my wrasse was dying.. however even my snails went about to the wrasse, and started devouring it. so it did meet a untimely death..
This has also happened to me with my blue hippo tang several times. it stays completely still and even when I go to take it out but than once i take him out he starts to move like saying, woooowww in alive i was just kidding!!!!
I had a awesome Lime wrasse that like many of this Genus live under the gravel. This cool fish was 1 1/4 inch when I got him and grew to a little less than 4# in 4years but died when I hit him with the syphon tube gravel cleaner, he was unlucky enough to be right at the initial point of entry when I was cleaning a small area or fine gravel, and this fish would eat straight from my fingers. Many times a friend would comment that a green fish looks dead buddy, no I’d say he’s just no completely covered by his (pyjamas) bedding. Love wrasses now I’ve got a Lubbocks fairy wrasse who doesn’t bury himself. A very colourful fish.
I had a few Green Bird Wrasse’s. They always go and lay on their side when they are resting. But, they have their eyes shifting and watching every move in the tank!
Love the Fish!
Dave
Most wrasses require a sandy (not gravel) bed, to do well in our systems. I’ve found that there is a larger tendency for this lying on the side behavior when they don’t have a sand bed to retreat to. Certainly not the only reason, I’m sure, but I’ve yet to see one exhibit thisbehavior in a tank with a deep sand bed
I just got a McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse. It hides under rocks that the Diamond Goby has dug out. Glad to know it can play dead. It seems not as shy after a couple days in the tank, beautiful fish.
hi mark this might be a great idea for your Friday quick tip. I was manually dosing since the beginning so now I have a bubble magnus pump. so I tried to program it without the results I was looking for (dosing wise) well from storage the hoses were kinked from sitting and created a block so I pulled them out as far as I could and rolled them in my fingers until they were un-blocked problem solved. imagine if it let go and over dosed!! something we should ALLWAYS do with new pumps to avoid over under dosing. hope to see it on one of the episodes TANKS ALOT!!!
From the movie ( the men who stare at wrasses).
I had a flasher wrasse before that used to share a hole under a rock with an engineer goby and a clown goby. I was lucky enough to get pics of it too. Three fish all poking out of one hole looking around. Good times…