Blenny: labored breathing, sitting near bottom of tank

[AustinVines]

I was out of town last night and my wife calls to tell me that our blenny is not doing well. Not eating, resting on the bottom, has "red spots" around gills, mouth and body. I get up very early and get home. What I see is similar.

The blenny is on the bottom with rapid gill movement and while the fish can move very quickly still, it does appear to be in some kind of distress. I don't notice the red gills, but maybe the fish in more dusky/dusty. I don't notice anything like salt grains or anything like that. I fed the tank which I normally do not do and itstayed on the sand bed and would wait for food to find it basically. It would aggressively eat, but only tat food that was close by. I put a nori clip in and it looks at it, but doesn't swim up to it.

Any ideas on what to do as far as diagnosis?

Here is a pic...

 

[AustinVines]

Ok, now the blenny has a string of mucus or something coming from around his mouth, steaming back along its body. It has sand caught in it and it will get sucked into its mouth and then expelled again. This help?

 

[Sk8r]

Withdraw to qt and dose copper, is my best guess. Sometimes ich doesn't show, but is in the gills.
Blennies very rarely get ich, but have no notorious 'other' diseases. Is this a new fish?

 

[AustinVines]

Not a new fish. The tank I started in April was two years old. I just counted the respiration and as near as I can tell it was 140 per minute.
The fish is eating, but not as voraciuously as usual.

I will say that 3 weeks about almost to the day, I thought my purple tang was starting an ich outbreak but it never developed and I thought I was just seeing things. Now I have no idea.

 

[Ti]

I guess u can try a FW dip