Mysterious Mandarin?

[Jimbo7]

Ok so a couple weeks ago i baught a green mandarin dragonet. My tank is just about a year old and i thought i had enough pods to sustain him. He was eating healthy(or so i thought) picking things off my LR every 5 min or so. This morning he was sluggish and breathing heavily, i scrambled to find him something to eat but no where was open easter sunday. A couple hours later he died, when i took him out this is what i found.

I know when they are starving people say you can see their stomaches curve in, is this that? I thought it looked more like something fungal. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated

Owned 3 weeks
Tankmates (2 clowns, diamond watchman goby, had a pseudochromis first couple days but they faught, removed the psuedo to a different tank.)
90 gallon with ~110 lbs LR, almost a year old
All levels 0 except for 'trates which are around 20, i just put some new macro in, wanted to see how much it filtered.
only thing i have added is PurpleUp, he had 2 hour acclimation
Had one spot gone from his back fin, i think from the psuedochromis but after i removed him on like day 2 the mandarin looked fine till today.
if you need anything else let me know
TIA i want to make sure this isnt something fungal that will effect my other fish.

 

[cmor1701d]

Sory about your loss. That does not look like a starved mandarin. Did somethng start munching on it before you removed it? Did you a photo from the front? It looks like it lost color on the front and head.

 

[Jimbo7]

Nothing seemed to be bothering it. It didnt lose much color, only a little today when we first noticed he didnt look so well. But he mainly lost color along his back. The..whatever it is...brown hole was actually a little deep, like the fungus/something ate through. Probably 1/16 to 1/8" deep.

 

[pat8you]

Sorry to hear about your fish. I really liked that guy. You have been having some real bad luck lately. After you figure out what happened to this guy and make sure everything is taken care of you should see if you can trap some of the little bugs we see on the glass and take them into the LFS and see if they can tell you if those are copepods or something else.

 

[melosu58]

Looks more bacterial to me. Maybe the psudochromis started it and it developed a secondary bacterial infection. That`s what it looks like to me anyway.

 

[pat8you]

We have lost a bunch of fish in that tank lately for no good reason. Should we be suspicious of something in the tank attacking our fish or some kind of illness in the water? I think jimbo posted a thread called mysterious disappearances or something about the other fish we lost.

 

[MaiNpHRaMe]

do you have any snails? It looks like something Nassarius snails would do.

 

[Jimbo7]

yea we have some really little ones, got them off saltwaterfish dot com. They have black shells though which at first intrigued me because all nassarious snails ive seen were white. I didnt even know they could harm fish?? how do they do something like that?

EDIT: Crap! i think saltwaterfish SCREWED me, mine look exactly like "Ilyanassa obsoleta" Which though only researching for a few minutes, seem nasty! I will take a picture of one of them tomorrow to see what you guys think.
I dunno if its taboo to link to sites but....
Nassarius Snail - Group of 10 (Nassarius sp)

 

[Karegg]

How exactly does a snail kill a fish? I read an article on the Ilyanassa obsoleta... the writer sounded like he thought they were bogus.

 

[melosu58]

I`ve had narsiruus snails a long time and never seen one remotely kill a fish. If they are already dead then they might do something. Narsiruss snails will not harm a fish as far as I know.

 

[cmor1701d]

The snails come in after a fish has died and start to eat it.
That photo on saltwater.com is of a nassarius obsoleta, not vibex. These are from colder waters off northern Florida to the Carolina's (I believe).

 

[MaiNpHRaMe]

I have some Nas snails and trust me they will leave nothing behind. They cant catch fish but will immediately start eating after it dies. You buy them for a reason and they do a darn good job at it.