New filefish on his deathbed?

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BLUElobster99

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Mar 15, 2013
Messages
736
Location
New Jersey
So about two weeks ago I got a white spotted pygmy filefish. Today I come home to see him glued to the intake of my ac110. So I immediately kill the filter and the fish floats to the bottom. He's alive and still breathing despite the fact that he hasn't moved. Should I expect him to pass away or does he still have a chance? And if he does die, would it be a bad idea to feed him to my mantis shrimp. I'm trying to vary his diet because I think he's tired of snails and frozen clams. And I already ordered a pre filter which should be arriving in two days so that I don't have to deal with this sort of situation again.
 
He just moved slightly but his gills are obviously working very hard because he isn't swimming. Should I turn my circulation pumps on to pass more water over his gills? I know some fish are adapted to manually pass water over they're own gills in order to remain motionless but I don't think the filefish is one of them.
 
Sadly, there isn't much turning back at this point most likely. Filefish can be difficult to keep and some investigating as to what was causing it to be unhealthy to the point where it was sucked into the pump to begin with.
 
I purchased a filefish awhile back and did a good acclimation and also put him in a social box so the other fish could get used to him and then introduced him to the tank. Two days later my cleaner shrimp is flying around with him in his mouth. Not sure if I got a bad fish of the bat but was shocked he lasted that long. I don't have a qt tank. I read these are really finicky fish as well. Just my experience of course
 
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