Mandrian Dying!!!!!!!!!!!

[jason sartain]

My mandrian has what looks like a dime sized "chew" mark in it's side.I didn't have time to load a picture this morning but it could be (Head and Lateral line diease),it started out very small on the side of it's body and I thought maybe something "nipped" it,but it just got bigger and bigger and now my fish is not swimming around and just laying on the bottom of my QT.The fish has been in my system for about 3 wks now,with plenty of copipods to munch on.
Since I've had the fish the only thing I've added to the tank is a large red serpent star,could this have attacked my fish?
Livestock list is:
med yellow tang
med clarki
sm flame angel
2-med bangi cardinals
3-sm green cromis
med false perc
lg royal gramma
lg golden head sleeper goby
sm white tailed damsel
75-snails
75-crabs
lg red serpent star
med serpent star
med arrow crab
Has anybody ever seen HLLD before?
Any help will be appricated.
I will post picture tonight.

 

[ralph atl]

yup

 

[george]

Serpent stars have been known to prey on unsuspecting fish. Mandarins go to "sleep" at night. They actually get all pale and white which can kind of spook owners into thinking the fish died.

 

[jason sartain]

Bump for the after work crew.

 

[ldybkr]

my checkerboard wrasse attacked my serpent sea star today...he went to the back of the tank, but not sure if the wrasse got a leg or not.

How is the mandarin?

 

[FutureInterest]

I don't trust serpents or brittle stars. Sure they make good scavengers but so do a lot of other much safer critters. That being said, that type of damage doesn't seem to jive with a serpent's MO. Based on the described wound I think the lg gramma or clarki are the primary suspects.

 

[jason sartain]

Well I'm sad to say that my Mandrian died last night.The weird thing about this is that I've never had any other problems with my gramma or Clarki with any other fish in my tanks or my starfish for that matter.
I guess this fish may just be too delicate for my set up?

 

[jason sartain]

Here's a picture of my fish.
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[bobz]

Dang! That really stinks. It does look like a large predator bite. Sorry you lost such a beautiful fish.

 

[george]

The symetric clean nature of that hole plus your description of it getting bigger and bigger makes me think that might have been some kind of flesh eating bacterial infection. If it were being attacked by another fish, it would probably show signs in other areas, but it looks like its fins are intact and no other wounds are present.

 

[jason sartain]

Thanks George. Do you think something could have bit it and caused the infection to set in or is it something that could have been present when I got the fish. I had only had it for about two weeks. It looked fine when I got it and loving all the pods in my tank.

 

[george]

I'm sure it could be a case of a smaller nip becoming a site for infection.

 

[soarin']

This fish was already probably pretty stressed from being collected, then going to the dealer, and then into your tank, so the immune system was probably pretty low.

I agree with George -- I think there was a nip or something and it was the final straw that slowly did it in. The smooth nature of the wound itself makes it look like an infection, rather than little bites being taken out of it.