Help! Fish not eating but tries and jerks.....

[Inushnu]

I have a potters angel that has, since I bought it 5 mo ago, been an a bit odd. I have a 55g with a few easy corals and some fish and the angel would zip back and forth from side to side very fast quite often.

I thought it was an internal parasite and began to feed it garlic, vit C, selcon and a nice variety of mysis, formula 2 & 1, and spirulina. I feed small amounts 3-4 times a day, water quality is great, other fish are healthy/happy, and so forth. The angel was ALWAYS a voracious eater coming right up to my hand at feeding times. It didn't pick at the LR often but I was feeding it well.

Recently I noticed it letting the cleaner shrimp really work its gills. That was the only time I noticed and I watch a lot! There is no rubbing or scratching against things and, again, no other fish (tang includ.) flashes or rubs.

Now the angel has stopped eating. I can see it really WANTS to eat but, every time it tries to grab food, it does this rapid mouth movement with some jerks, like it has a tooth issue that bugs when it tries to suck up food. It's very odd!! It doesn't jerk any other time but is back (it stopped and calmed down for a while) to swimming back and forth in front of the tank.

The color is still good, the fins perfect, no visible parasites on its body. I'm at a loss. I've been doing a search of fish disease and just can't match up the symptoms.

Please help! I have a 20g FO I can move it to but, without a treatment method, there's no pt. putting it in there to stress it out MORE.

 

[TerryB]

I would try a large water change using well aged aerated saltwater first. Everything starts with water quality and it is surprising how often fish respond to a water change when the parameters seem to be fine. If the fish does not respond to the water change then the next thing I would try is putting it in quarantine and using some praziquantel. It may be infected with flukes. I don't often recommend FW dips, but if you can't get the medication then it is the next best thing. Formalin dips would work well if you can get some formalin, but the praziquantel works well for flukes and it is safer than formalin.

Have you added anything to the tank recently? Do you quarantine all new additions before adding them to the DT?

Terry B

 

[Inushnu]

did a water change last night and haven't added anything new for a while. it has always acted like it had something parasitic but ate well. i thought it was an older captured fish and just wasn't diggin' the whole containment thing. I'll call my LFS for the praziquantel and move it into the QT if it doesn't start eating by tonight (it's been 2 days so far .

Thanks!!