my baby is dying

I have a square spot anthias (I think) well it's the best close anthias I can discribe it as. Anyways, for 2 days I have seen him in the corner of my tank not breathing (if you will) hard but just sitting there. Today I get home and noticed he is a lot slower and doing the same hanging around. Then I saw him swim a bit then nose dive right into the sand and plop down. I noticed that his stomach area is inverted as if he has not eating in months and his stomach is all shriveled up. instead of his bottom hald being normal looking, now it looks like sombody took a baseball bat to him and now he has a permanent dent in his bottom stomach area.. As soo as my camera charges up enough I will post pics but in the mean time, anybody got ideas.. Can this be my first fish that just dies of old age or is this something else.. Usually I lose fish because others attacked or bad water... all my water test as of yesterday is perfect. I have 125g coral with many fish.. I have never witnessed of the 8 months I had this fish get into fights or be picked on. For now I took him out and put him in my sump/ refigium.

 

What foods are you offering him?

 

And how many times a day are you feeding this fish?

 

he/ she gets frozen brine shrimp every 3 days with the rest of the tank and some new life spectrum dry food pellets that I have been using both for 6 months. I have changed nothing in there diet or recently changed something in the tank IE: water change, new coral or rocks added, etc. no chemicals added either.

 

Good move for a little R & R in the refugium. Can get tough to pinpoint how old a fish is. The lack of activity could point that way...sounds like it is starving though. Any new inhabitants to the tank who may have not finished a good QT period? Is the anthias attempting to eat? What are you feeding it? Any vitamin supplements added to the food to help out?

 

the brine shrimp is the little cubes made by formula foods. It's called brine shrimp plus.. same food for 6 months i also add one cube of Formula one cube for the iverts, crabs, hermits etc. so a total of 4 cubes 3 being the brine shrimp, 1 is formula one and that is mixed with 2 cap full of DT's live marine phytoplankton premium reef blend..

 

Well if its a Square-spot Anthias aka Pseudanthias pleurotaenia then you have a hard fish to keep alive I had a few once.. Feeding them is a full time job I ha to set up a diastolic pump to dose the rotifiers to mine about 10 times a day. A very difficult fish to keep long term. Might want to move to a easier species of Anthias to keep. Brine shrimp is useless as a food source like letting a human eat pizza or PBJ and stay healthy If you don't soak Brine shrimp in a vitamin for a 1/2 hr before feeding it then its nothing more then fatty candy won't keep much alive long term.. Also you don't add food for crabs and such they do their job they get fed..Free food means doing less work for what you put them in there for. To hunk and scour the rocks and sand..

 

nothing added to the tank in some time. He was swimming when I came home but then poops out in the corner.. LOL Seems like he is constipated... He was active yesterday when I tossed a little dry food. He was active to eat but not today.

 

oh by the way.. My refigium lights are off during the day and vice a versa at night from the main tank to keep the PH balance correct.. (something I read) so, because it is day time should I leave the refgium on for this fish or continue my normal cycle and keep it dark with the moon lights on for him?

 

Anthias need several feedings a day and as was mentioned earlier, they need to eat something far more nutrious than brine shrimp or flake. I'd feed it mysis shrimp at least twice a day from now on.