Majestic Angel Under Stress, Discoloration And Ich

[Racerchic478]

Long story short, my 150 gallon SW tank busted a silicon seal and created a waterfall in my front living room. Luckily, I was home and heard the drips in time to save all my fish, my rock setup and about 140 gallons plus all in the refugium. They are now staying temporarily in a 55 gallon until the new 150 gallon arrives next Thursday. Everyone is doing GREAT hanging out in the 55 gallon "quarantine" tank, except my Majestic angel.

He's got some dark spots and light spots all over his face, back to his fins. He also seems to have some ich, but I lowered the salinity so hopefully that will clear up in a day or two. His fins are a little tattered from the rapid capture, but I'm most worried because he is refusing to eat.

He was a finicky eater before, when I first introduced him to the tank. I tried brine, mysis, and angelfood prep to no avail. I had to finely chop silver sides and hand deliver them to his hideout and even then he would refuse to eat until much later. Now that he has endured a little shock from all the drama with the tank busting, I'm afraid I won't get him to eat in time to fight through whatever is causing his discoloration.

Factors I've checked:

Water quality is good.
Temp stays between 77.9 and 78.8 F
Salinity is 1.016-1.017, read from a refractometer. Just had it checked and it's accurate.
Nobody is picking on him.
He is not rubbing on anything.
He is not showing any other signs of illness. Only discoloration and loss of appetite.

So.... anyone got any ideas?

 

[littleme1969]

Hi Sorry to hear about your problem. From my own experiences of ich I would say it should be treated ASAP and the fact that hes not eating is a huge worry. When my tank had ich not all my fish rubbed on anything so that is not always a sign that its present. The fact thats he is listless and blotchy and also not eating you could just put down to stress. I have had to move my tank contents a few times and certain fish that where a struggle to get to eat to start with always went off their food for anything from 3 - 5 days also. I found the best way to encourage fish to eat is live food. Live brine shrimp water fleas etc stimulate the fish to both swim and eat. This inturn also seem to have huge effect on the mood of the fish, and fish that where depressed soon pick up and within a few days will start eating their normal food and swimming around happily.
If there are no other signs of ich within the tank I would probably hold of treating. Ive tried using the lower s.g. to treat ich and to be honest had no luck what so ever. Infact it caused more problems by causing stability issues within the tank, that killed more fish than the ich. It has to be done with a buffer so that the PH does not drop and it can be really difficult to balance things.
I would try the live food it will boost the health of everything and give him the best chance of recovery.
Hope he makes it.

 

[Racerchic478]

Thanks for the advice! Ok - I'm off to Fish Gallery to find some live food for him! I did notice the live rock in the QT was picked clean - it had some hair algae on it - so I put another piece in to find the eating culprit and A-HAA! He was eating the algae! So it was good to know he was at least picking at something.

Again, thanks, and I'll update after trying the live food.