Are my fish OK?

[John_20g_nanoreef]

Hi there,

3 days ago I bought a small tank bred Clown and a small six line wrasse and added them to my two week old tank (after cycling) which already featured a healthy yellow Coralgoby (who only eats frozen food(note: i haven't tried pellets)). So far i have only managed to feed the clown flake food which he will eat happily along with frozen foods, however he constantly swims from one side of the tank to the other really fast, whilst  bumping into the each side of the glass and does this whilst swimming next to the front glass panel of the tank and occasionally stops at each corner swimming up and down slowly. My question is, is the clownfish healthy or stressed and is there something i should do? note : he is the only clownfish in the tank and is very small.

 

Also my small six line wrasse that i got has been hiding in a cave in the rock and rarely comes out. When he does come out, he swims close to the sand bed and its usually first thing in the morning before the light comes on but the natural light coming through the windows is present. When he is in the cave he doesn't move much but still moves his fins, and occasionally pecks at the glass next to him.  Also during my first day of having him i couldn't find him in the tank, and it turned out he was stuck in the gap between the HOB filter and the glass, i moved the filter and at first i thought he was dead but he slowly swam into the cave which is at the other side of the tank. I haven't managed to feed him yet as he  swims away from the coral feeder with frozen food in it. My parameters are stable and i have nitrates at 2 ppm with ammonia and nitrite at 0 ppm. My second question is, is the six line wrasse OK and if not what should i do about it? note: when I bought the two fish from the LFS, they were both swimming around, looking healthy, but the wrasse did occasionally hide in the rock. Also when i looked at the wrasse in the bag (during acclimation) he had a white floating bit attached to the fins on the top of his body, but it has now gone.

 

To give you an idea about the tank and the cave, the tank is 20 gallons and the cave is just rock leaning against the back corner of the tank so i can see inside and so know what the wrasse is doing whilst in there.

 

Thanks,  John.

[j.falk]

Six lines will be very shy at first and commonly hide for awhile until they get used to the tank.  Try feeding it in the morning when he's out and the lights are off.  

 

My last three baby clowns did exactly what you are describing when I added a new brighter light to their tank.  They did it for over a week straight and then one day they just snapped out of it and went back to swimming normally.  I just chalked it up to stress from the new light.  Maybe try turning down your lights a bit to see if that helps some.

[John_20g_nanoreef]

@j.falk thanks for the advice 🙂

[j.falk]

Make sure you have plenty of rock in your tank.  A general rule is 1 lb. of dry or live rock per gallon of tank water.  The rock will give your fish a better sense of security and will help keep them from being stressed.  Wrasses love to dart in and out of holes in the rockwork.

[Nevvy]

When I first started my tank I had one clownfish in the tank that would do the same, dart from corner to corner and even just look dead facing downward and swimming vertically along the rim on the tank...I eventually turned down the lights and flow a bit and after awhile. "she" came along and got better as shes the biggest of the two I have. However, I didn't introduce the second Clownfish until about 6 months of being alone by herself, but adding another Clownfish has definitely made her mood livelier.