active peacock won't eat - sunken belly

[howmanyds]

I have a flavescent peacock - about fourth in the peacock hierarchy in the tank, who has had beautiful coloring for months. About three weeks ago he started coloring down just a tad and staying near the bottom of the tank. I figured it was because a flametail stuartgranti was passing him by size-wise and color-wise, but the latter doesn't seem to bother him.

Then I noticed he isn't eating his food. He swims around plenty, unlike the two other peacocks that I've seen die from a parasite in the last year who just stayed in one spot until they croaked. This guy goes after the NLS pellets, but he only holds them in his mouth for a second before spitting them back out. For three weeks now.

Interestingly, whenever I've tried to catch him he colors up again nicely. Today I finally caught him and he's nicely colored in his isolation chamber. But I think he's not eating still. His stomach is concave.

I figured I'd try daily salt baths with 1 Tbsp epsom salt in 1 gallon of water for 30 minutes.

Other suggestions?

 

[gilpi]

My experience with this has not been a good outlook for the fish but you can try keeping the water on the warmer side of the range.

 

[parky]

Does his mouth/ lips have any red marks scabs or blisters as I had a peacock do a smiler thing turn out to be a fungus infection from fighting!

 

[howmanyds]

Would daily salt baths help with fungus or just with parasites?

But I don't see any fungal white spots on his face.