Brett,
Sorry to hear about this. This is not an easy fish to keep. My opinion is this fish really needs to be able to hide and hunt to be comfortable. So from the time it's collected, held, shipped, tanked at the wholesaler, sold, bagged, shipped to fish store, tanked, chosen, bagged, and finally brought home - These fish are just entirely unhappy. They live deep and like the darkness and shelter of caves.
So everything that happens from the time they are caught is just opposite of what they prefer, and they aren't adapting quickly or easily. I think these along with Multi-bar and Colini really need to get into a tank that provides natural hunting and feeding and darkness as soon as possible.
Losing a fish like this after it's in your care for only a couple of days should not be taken as a failure on your end.
Fortunately I hear they have been available in pretty good quantities for the past month or so, so perhaps another opportunity awaits you.
On a different note, while feeding my tank on Sunday evening both Venustus popped out at the same time to check out some Formula Pellets. A little pecking but no voracious eating. But both fish looked good and are eating. Neither is skinny, but neither is overly round.
It's amazing that in a 8' long tank with almost 20"+ of rock height that both Venustus appear to be living in the far left corner of the tank. The rock openings that they appear of out are on 2 sides of large (16"+) rock. And they share the openings with a juvenile multicolor angel. So when I am watching the tank I see a yellow face appear out of the darkness and don't know who it is
I hope you can find a healthy replacement quickly, so we can get this thread moving in a positive direction again!
Dave B