Just out of interest

[L1NDON]

I was browsing round a marine fish shop today - just happened to be passing - and I noticed that probably 1/3 of the fish were lying on the floor of the tank, breathing normally.

Normally I'd think they were all on their way out (which they may well have been), but it was pretty weird that so many were fine... and a bunch were all exhibiting exactly the same behavior. (ie no white-spot/velvet, no obvious signs of distress, just lying sideways on the bottom (which I am sure you will probably add - is an obvious sign of distress;))

They had an unusual set up with small-ish tanks, no substrate, and one fish and one piece of decorative rock per tank.

Anyway - I was just wondering could this be considered normal behavior under these conditions - or are they all sick - now I think about it the tanks with the sideways fish were near each other and so could have been sharing a common water supply

BTW I'm not thinking of buying any - I was just wondering what was up with them

[Zeus]

mmm... curious. What species of fish were they, the ones that were lying down?

Campbell

[L1NDON]

all sorts - there was a dragon wrasse, a 6 lined wrasse, and one of those little yellow wrasses - WAIT A MINUTE - they're all wrasses!:) I cant remember what the others were - maybe they were wrasses too or maybe not - cant be sure

still - I've a couple of wrasses and have never seen them do that -

[ROB]

Hi,
Wrasse have a habit of playing dead when first introduced of or netted maybe this was the cause just a thought,


Rob.

[Zeus]

Yip, as I suspected. Wrasse do this when newly introduced and even when they are caught and bagged for transport. You may see some some Clown fish doing this as well.

Wetmorella Wrasse actually play dead, rolling over on their backs with all fins splayed out.

Check this out

http://www.reefcorals.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=89055&postcount=1

Cheers,
Campbell

[marinemike]

can we ask was the shop in a town starting with A? if not pm me where it was please.

[L1NDON]

Wow - never would have thought of that -

sent you a pm

[Tangman]

Hi Anthias always lay down or rest on the bottom when in LFS tanks.Also Regal Tangs do this as a friend of mine thought he had done a good job by buying one thinking he had rescued it, silly boy he only had a small tank. HTH Twiggy:D:D

[marinemike]

after receiving the pm at to which shop it is,i doubt there is any thing untoward with the fish as it was not the dead centre.

[chinapattern]

My fairy wrasse did exactly the same. I was quite convinced he wasn't going to last the night. Next morning he was swimming about fine.




Jenny

[Aquandy]

I've seen Regal Tangs do this in shop tanks, these fish don't exactly sell themselves do they.