[Snowflake_Eel]

I came home from work and noticed that my small (2inch) rectangle trigger has a brownish pink blotch that covers up the tip of the yellow ">" that is closest to his tail. I am new to marine aquariums and i looked online for anything that looked like it but couldnt find anything. it was not there last night and he still seems to be eating fine, swimming around but he I also saw him in a small cave he has never been in before and he seems to be hiding slightly more then he normally does during the day. I did a water change last night if it might mean something. My water gravity is 1.022, my nitrates are 80 but i added chemi-pure to my filter yesterday to control them, my nitrites are 0.75, my alkalinity is above 300, and my pH is 8.0, and the water temperature is 79 degrees. If anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated.

on a closer look it looks like a the scales in the small area are raised and are the colour comes with it. its just brownish in the area. Im also keeping a red banded hawk and a small snowflake eel in the tank.

[Snowflake_Eel]

I think i might have figured out what the pinkish brown spot was. I remembered that yesterday when I was changing the water my friend went to grab a piece of live rock that looks really corally with lots of holes and pieces hanging off, which is where he normally lives, and anyways my friend grabbed the rock and said he accidentally put a finger on the rectangle trigger and pushed him a bit so, what I though was a disease i think might be a spot where it is swelling where he got pushed against a piece of the rock sticking out. It might also explain why hes hiding as, virtually all injured animals hide while healing. My question is if he is likely to survive or not and also whether or not there is anything I can do to help him. Also when I though it was some kind of disease i bought melafix and pimafix which i am already treating my tank with, which i think ill continue in case it is a disease, and also in case he gets any kind of infection.

[leebca]

I put your two posts together. It is better to keep it all in one thread. It is okay for your to reply to your own post.

There is a lot of missing information which could help in getting to the answer. An injury is possible, but your conclusion that all healing animals hide, is quite erroneous. I won't venture an opinion without knowing at least:

The size of your display tank (dimension and water capacity in gallons)
When the tank cycled
How old is the tank
Tell me all the components of the system (e.g., skimmer, carbon media, mechanical filter, circulation (return pump rate + internal power head flows), lighting, refugium, sump, total water volume in system minus decorations, live rock, substrate, UV, other chemicals, etc.)
List the foods you feed and how much AND how frequent do you feed
Do you use additives to the water, or fat or vitamin supplements - list all.
Ammonia reading
The size of the other fishes in the tank
What size (gallons and percent) water change did you do
What do you use for your source water (if you use an artificial salt, then what kind of water do you mix it up with?)
Have you tested your source water for any contaminants, nitrites, ammonia, nitrates, etc.?
When you took the reported readings, was it after or before the water change
How are you doing the water tests (chemistries, pH, temperature, etc.) - kits, dip sticks, meter, or ?

One observation is that there should be no detectable nitrites in the water with this number of fish in it. So something is definitely wrong, but without more information. . .

One can assume that the fish is being poisoned and this is an indication of poor water quality. But before I can come to conclusion, I need more information.

[Snowflake_Eel]

Ok ill try to answer as many as I can
20g upgrading to 65g in summer
its been running for 3 months (same with tank)
I have a bio wheel filter with activated carbon and chemi pure to remove nitrate and ammonia, prizm hang on skimmer, and a 900 l/h powerhead, 10 pound of live rock as I am buying live rock ( was plannning on buying more tommorow, as I only needed teh smaller amount of live rock because I only had a snowflake eel in since start), 1 inch of sand,
I feed the trigger silverside, and about half a fish every day, Mysis shrimp for red banded hawk, small chunk daily, organic tiger shrimp every other day for eel
The snowflake eel is roughly 12 inches but I have never seen it act aggresive towards other fish, The red banded hawk is about 3 inches
I did a 25% water change, as usual
I use tap water, with a conditioner and instant ocean salt mix
I have tested my water and nothing seemed to be wrong
readings were soon after
dip sticks
I took new readings which were : Nitrate 180, nitrite 0.5, alkalinity 300+, pH 7.8
The tank was also previously a fully cycled freshwater tank which had been running for 3 months which I changed directly to saltwater

As for the fish he is very rapidly getting worse as the pinkish brown spot has spread covering almost all of one side of his back. He also appears to have lost almost all use of his bottom fin and his back and bottom fin are taking on a baige looking colour and he also is getting lots of discolouration around his mouth and bottom front, which is significantly more severe on one side. He also has a red spot beisde his mouth and has now stopped eating. he has also used his hooks to lock himself inside the coral. I tried to loosely inustrate how he looks in the first picture. The other pictures were taken at around 5:00. Any help is greatly appreciated and im willing to try anything to help him, but at this point im not joking my self and I can tell it looks grim.
I also inspected the coral and in his cave there is a piece sticking out that is in right about the same spot as where his mark originated from.

Yah and I apologize for the comment about how all inured animals hide, i wasnt reallly thinking and was kind of nervous.

[leebca]

I'd say it was a poisoning that the fish is not able to manage. The following is most likely the sources of this poisoning:

1. Being touched by a human hand (assuming this was the case as you mentioned). This adds human bacteria to the fish's own and may also compromise the fish's mucous coating.

2. Water quality. You don't have enough biological filtration. Too little LR, not enough ammonia and nitrite control and a very large bioload with the quantity and frequency of foods being served. The source water is very suspect in contributing to the reduced water quality. Testing is below average: Using dip sticks is the worst choice for obtaining reliable information on the water quality. Start using test kits for: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium as a minimum.

3. Poor nutrition. The fish depends upon proper nutrients to fend off problems. When something like this happens, the energy reserve of the fish goes towards healing. The fish with this kind of diet doesn't have enough of that reserve. These fishes need better foods, a wider variety, and supplemented with vitamins and fats.

Some further complications have probably set in. With what has happened, the bacteria and opportunistic microbes are 'eating the fish alive.' There is now most likely a systemic infection as a result of all this.

At this stage, most of your fishes are at risk. I hope you can save your sick fish, but it won't be easy. The sick fish needs to be moved into a quarantine or hospital tank immediately and treated with two types of antibiotic: one for Gram Positive and one for Gram Negative bacteria. I would choose Maracyn One and Maracyn Two for salt water fish. However, if you can't find the formula for saltwater fish, the meds for freshwater fish will be okay to use.

When you dose them, put in double the dosage recommended on the package for just the Maracyn Two.

Since there will be no biological filtration in the QT, you'll need to perform water changes about twice a day so that your test kit readings show zero or none detectable for both ammonia and nitrites. However, you are not going to use tap water with the conditioner anymore for this QT. You will obtain distilled water or RO/DI purified water to use as source water. You will test the source water using your test kits to verify it has no ammonia or nitrites in it. This may require a separate kit for freshwater, if the one you buy for your salt water cannot be used to measure this in freshwater.

Since you will be performing large water changes, I would like you to follow this procedure: How to Make a Successful Water Change

To begin to help the remaining fishes in the marine system, stop using the tap water with conditioner. Use source water as described above. Once you have established a top quality source water, do a 25% water change daily of your marine system water, until you have the proper biological filter going and your ammonia and nitrite readings remain zero or none detected for several days in a row using a test kit. Nitrite poisoning is slow for some fish, but once the hobbyist sees it, the fish dies pretty quickly after that, even without the secondary infections.

Obviously, don't do 1. again. Keep all hands, elbows, feet, etc. out of the marine system. Use sterile, non-powdered gloves if you must touch the water.

2. Get kits and stop using tap water. I cannot say the quality of the tap water you have available to you, but things in the water that are fine for humans are not always okay for fish. Those things you just can't test for. Even the kinds of tests with dip sticks doesn't tell much relative to the water quality. Test kits noted below and above must be used to test source water. I hope you like to read, because you need to do a lot of it, in this area. Please read these references:
WATER - Source and NSW
and
Chemistry and the Aquarium
and
What is Water Quality

3. Read through this link and begin to apply this to your fishes:
Feeding Marine Fish and Fish Nutrition

There are many articles and posts that you will find useful as you learn more and more about the hobby. This is a post that has links to these:
Table/Contents - Link List

I wish you and your fishes all the luck!

[Snowflake_Eel]

Thanks for all your help I hope it works

[Snowflake_Eel]

Thanks again for all your help, but unfortunately he was dead when I went back to look for him. I will however start doing everything you told me.