Fairy Wrasse and Hawk fish "fighting"?

[Zenoah1439]

I recently had a coral Beauty in my 40g breeder that decided to start nipping at my Coral clam, so i decided to take her back and get some replacement fish that would be more coral friendly. I ended up getting a Fairy Wrasse, Bangaii Cardinal, and Flame Armatus Hawk Fish. Everything went fine the first 3 days, then yesterday after getting home I noticed the Wrasse was acting odd (swimming loops over and over again). I decided to sit and watch the tank for a couple hours to see if i could see anything occurring out of place and ended up seeing the Hawk fish dive bomb the wrasse.

At this point I decided it was time to put one of my fish in the isolation tank. I opted to put the Hawk fish in isolation thinking that if i isolate the Wrasse, the hawk may then decide to attach the Cardinal instead. My first question, does it sound feasible that a Hawk fish could attack a Wrasse or am I chasing the wrong issue? If it sounds reasonable, I may take the Hawk back and exchange for a more "docile" fish.

Second question regards the Wrasse. Since the apparent attack, the Wrasse appears to have lost control of his lower fins (the 2 low hanging "control" fins and the longer fin near its tail). Is it possible that the attack could have caused this? If so, is it likely that the Wrasse will recover or has there been permanent damage? Its been about 2 days now with no real change in the Wrasse behavior.

As a side note, as soon as i saw the odd behavior I checked all the chemicals in the tank. Everything reads perfect. These are the only 3 fish in the tank currently and so far the Wrasse is the only one showing any signs of stress. All of the coral and the Fire Shrimp also appear completely normal.

Any thoughts as to if I'm on the right track to a solution or if i'm isolating the wrong fish would be greatly appreciated.

Current setup is a 40g breeder main, with 29g sump, macro algae, protein skimmer.

 

[1guydude]

Should be fine...what's the size of these fish? My longnose hawk has done circles before but never dive bombed another fish lmao

 

[mercenary-grunt]

The wrass can grow back the fins. But hawk fish have been known to be more on the aggressive side. Isolate the hawk fish. They a
So like to eat shrimp.

 

[Zenoah1439]

thanks for the responses.

The fish are all relatively small. The Cardinal and Hawk are maybe 1.5-2" and the Wrasse is full grown at about 3".

If it were a matter of the fins growing back, i'd be ok with it. Unfortunately, the fins are still there but they seems to be non-functional. He's maintaining mobility only with his upper fin and 2 side fins. The rest of the fins seem unable to move which has drastically reduced his ability to move around. He seems to be moving around OK, but definitely not 100% mobile.

What would be the cause for his fins to appear "paralyzed"?

 

[estanoche]

I had to remove my falco hawkfish from my tank as my wrasses kept jumping - while he never seemed "aggressive" of sorts, his habit of hanging around, and then darting at the wrasses just made them go nuts!

I would opt out of the hawk if you like the wrasse better - or vice versa.... somebody is going to loose

 

[TJL]

Agree with Joanne here, once a Hawkfish determines a Wrasse to be a teritorial threat it will continuously harass and/or attack until its out of its teritory (dead or carpet surf) IMHO most Hawkfish will not ever tollerate the Wrasse family in anything less than 150-180 gallon tank size. Of course there are exceptions as have had both Flame and Arceye that were tame as a Teddybear.

Cheers, Todd