Help my Powder brown...

[RYknow]

So as some of you know my Powder Brown (Maynard) hasn't been doing so well. After the move to the new tank things were great for the first week. Then the second week, he just stopped eating, and didn't eat for 6 days.Finally he started eating again, although in very small amounts. Then after getting the suggestion to try the garlic, I was very excited to see him eat a pretty large meal last night. So I went to be thinking we were heading in the right direction. So then I woke up this morning, and turned on the light like always. I started checking out the tank (did a big water change last night, and it always looks awesome first thing the next morning). Then I noticed that my PB looked kind of funny. His rear fin has what I would reffer to as a little bit of fraying? It seems to be a bit torn. Not to mention his whole body is very blotchy. There aren't any white spots or anything of that nature. He's become VERY inactive. I'm not sure what to do next. I read on the bottle of the garlic that I can throw some of that directly into the tank. Is that something I want to look into if I'm trying to treat one fish? The rest of the fish are awesome!

Anyway...here are my water parameters as of this morning (I'm using the strips. I have a 6 in one, and a seperate one for ammonia.).

Nitrate: 20 - 40 (somewhere between the two. These are listed as "OK" on the test strip.)
Nitrite: 0
Alkalinity: 180
PH: 7.8 (I used some buffer up right after the test. I'll go back in an hour and check again)
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.024

I'm still pretty new to SW, and I'm under the impression that these levels are pretty good?

Any suggestions would be great!

-RYknow

[RYknow]

I just snapped off a couple pics. Here they are...







In these pics, it looks like he has little white spots. Thats actually what appears to be very small pieces of sand or something? When you look closely (in person) you can tell it's on the outside of his body. Is this a type of parasite? Ick? I'm pretty much broke...but I'll scrounge up $25 for a Scarlet Skunk Cleaner if you guys think that would be a good thing to try.

I just don't want to loose this fish! Maynard's my favorite!

-RYknow

[ccCapt]

He does not look good...at all. Do you have a qt tank setup?
Looks like ick and some kind of bacterial infection. Copper will cure the ick and improved water quality will help with the infection.

Don't waste your $ on a cleaner shrimp at this point.

[Bifferwine]

I agree with Capt, a cleaner shrimp will help prevent outbreaks like this in the future, but what he needs right now is medication.

You don't have to medicate him though. Lots of fish can get over ich by themselves if stress is minimized and they are eating. Unfortunately tangs are not usually very good at fighting it off themselves and are not strong enough to do so. Tangs like Maynard are especially susceptible to ich, and that's why they're called "ich magnets". If you choose not to medicate him, keep soaking his food in garlic and Selcon (which is a vitamin/amino acid supplement).

If you are going to medicate the fish, you can't do it in the main tank, as copper will kill all your inverts, and will contaminate your rock and sand so that you can't keep inverts in the future.

If you don't have a quarantine tank set up, maybe your LFS would be able to hold on to him and medicate him for you?

[RYknow]

Maynard is no more... He got progressively worse as the day went on. Not sure what it was...but it happened VERY quickly. His breathing sped up conciderably, and he developed some large "wounds". In the pics I took earlier, just his rear fin was frayed. after pulling him out, all of his fins were torn up. He also had some redish/brown sores developing around and under his mouth.

This is a sad day. By far my most favorite fish ever. What do I need to change to prevent this? Is it my water? Or was it just the fact he was a PB?

-RYknow

[RyanG]

Water quality, stress, and being a suceptable species all probably contributed. Sorry for your loss.

[RYknow]

Is my water quality that bad? I listed my levels above. I know that if there is any nitrates whatsoever, then there is room for improvement. And from the nearest I can tell, my PH is pretty close (should be once the buffer up works in a bit.). And the rest were zeros.

I want a protein skimmer!

-RYknow

[RyanG]

NO the quality isnt terrible. A skimmer will help quite a bit with the NO3.

[daugherty]

it is just a hard fish to keep.

[Reefrookie]

Sorry for your loss. I also had a Powder Brown that was fat and happy at night and found him loaded with Ick and dead in the morning a few weeks ago. I have no clue what happened. All other fish were not affected