How is this even possible?

I'm sure he jumped through that gap.  They are masters at it and if there is any way they can get out, they will.  No doubt in my mind.

Just looking at your picture tells me he could of easily gotten through there.  He may not of made it the first few times he tried, but he definately made it through on his LAST time of his life.  Sorry for your loss.

When there is a will there is a way. Wrasses are masters at suicide.

Sorry for the loss.
To have found that way out, the Fairy Wrasse was jumping dozens of times daily/nightly. That indicates a problem with it's environment. It was jumping to get to a better place. In the wild they don't typically jump out of the water unless they got caught in a stagnant tidal pool where jumping is the only way out.

Glass covers are not healthy for the reef aquarium environment. I would ask how is this tanks environment for a fish? Is it comfortable or uncomfortable? What kind of fish would be comfortable there? If the environment is fish friendly, a fish has no need to jump.

What other fish are in this tank  and may we see a pic of the entire tank

At the very least I would remove the glass cover immediately and look into possibly using a screen cover.

Removing the glass cover will have a major effect on gas exchange. Improved gas exchange allows pH to be where it is supposed to be. Improved gas exchange allows more O2 in the water and less CO2. Everything breathes easier, is healthier and happier with more O2 and better pH.

Aloha,
Mark

Wrasses also jump when they are trying to attract a mate and during the mating process. Maybe your fish felt that 'urge'.

Beautiful tank Jared! I especially like the Sexy shrimp and the tunnel though the back of the tank.

the two pistol shrimp do some major rearranging from time to time. The tank really looks better under the blue lights with all the zoas I have. I just can't take decent photos or video under those lights. 

Edited by peiji - March 03 2014 at 8:46pm

Thanks for the video. Well aquascaped for sure. The video gives a couple brief glimpses of things that I believe make a huge difference to tank health and stability.
Continuing where I left off above...
- I can say for certain that glass cover is keeping pH lower than it ought to be, especially at night when algae is not using CO2 and not producing O2 but animals are still breathing O2 and respiring CO2. We usually talk about pH only in terms of coral and fish deaths, but as pH falls below where it should be, it causes distress and other environmental problems without immediately killing fish and coral.
- The glassy water surface in this tank makes the water surface hard to see, especially in the dark from directly below. This makes an anxious Wrasse  even more likely to leave the confines of it's pond.
- The powerheads are not pointed up breaking the water surface. This also means that dissolved O2 is not as high as it ought to be. Add to that the fact that the water has practically no contact with fresh air, my opinion is that this tank is balancing on the edge of a problem. I believe you were on the right track, hinting about your suspicions when you said above, "...an early indicator of problems." (Personally, I would be very concerned if a power outage occurred before I had a chance to remove the cover and point the powerheads at the center water surface.)

Put yourself in the shoes, so to speak, of your Wrasse. If the Wrasse was anxious to find a companion, as Nikki posed, then any other imbalance in its environment only served to send it over the edge. When you, it's owner, were near the tank food entered the water which temporarily pacified it to a certain extent. (I believe that fish are also smarter than we give them credit.) It saw what happened when the glass was moved aside for feeding and when you worked in the tank. It knows there is something else out there. It has probably noticed the space in the cover and may have even aimed for that spot.

As always, I believe fish are more content when the tank is closer to their natural environment. Many of the fish and most of that coral may not be in the Wrasses natural environment. Also, in it's natural environment food is available for the hunting. In our tanks, living food is soon eaten up. But what's this? Tasty food comes in from above the cover! It should not surprise us that, fish that can jump, will jump in an effort to find that food. Hence the logic for installing a screen cover.

I'm pretty sure that I will be seen as ridiculous by some readers for the views I have expressed above. That's okay. I try to be as responsible a hobbyist as possible following my understanding of our WMAS Mission Statement.

Aloha,
Mark


Edited by Mark Peterson - March 03 2014 at 10:06pm

I'll have to work on making a screen cover. Might take a while. I don't want to detract from the rimless look. I still don't think i should risk removing the glass cover until I do. I have too many expensive jumpers to risk another loss. 

Perfectly understandable about not wanting to risk losing more fish until the screen is installed. It was Tileman/Brad that first located this material and offered it to us locally. He might have some left. Also do a search here because just a month ago I remember someone saying that they had extra.

Yes, point the powerheads more vertically at the surface. I could be wrong but the water surface I saw in the video was not being agitated. The powerhead on the right side looked to me like it was more horizontal than vertical. My rimless tanks each have a single powerhead at the bottom back which does the job very nicely (but these tanks don't have a pile of rock in the center).

I'm thinking that until a screen top is added or as a permanent option, consider using a small fan to blow fresh air into the space between the glass cover and the water via the slit or the back hole where the wires enter.

Aloha,
Mark