Midnight Angel with possible parasite????

How long have you had the fish?
Have you noticed any aggression between your fish (dwarf angelfish can be aggressive towards eachother and dottybacks are known to be aggressive)?
How long has the tank been running for?
Have you introduced any new fish recently or made any changes?

First thing I would do is check all your water parameters, pH, salinity, KH, ammonia etc etc. Some fishes skin can become irritated by changes in water parameters.

Second thing I would do is watch it very closely to see if any parasites present themselves in the next few days. I wouldn't treat a fish until you have identified what you are treating.

I take it you're referring to C. ferrugata and C. nox. Both are beautiful fish. However, Pygmy angels do not tend to mix well together and once established in the aquarium can start behaving pugnaciously toward other angelfishes. Chuck in the fact you have a P. porphyreus (although not the most aggressive of the species) can behave aggressively. Then add to all that, that it's a 40gal tank, I'd say you've got a fair bit of bullying going on there.

JMO

I don't want to get into a disagreement but it is not snobby at all to refer to the scientific name of a fish, it just makes sense. Many marine fish go by more than half-a-dozen common names, and often more than one species will go by the same common name. I know of 3 species that go by rusty angelfish and another few that go by midnight angelfish. It always pays to know the scientific name to save confusion and for researching a fish.

Glad to hear your fish is doing better.

I've been working on alot of fish profiles recently, and have discovered just how many "common" names fish have. For example the "Strawberry Dottyback" (P. porphyreus) is also known as the Magenta Dottyback, and Purple Dottyback. You posted the common names, I posted the scientific names. There was absolutely no snobbish intention, I was just trying to help others who may want to research the fish themselves.

RyDoggsReef said:

The tank is well established. the salinity was slightly high, i did a big water change, a nice cleaning, and lowered the salinity the the skin problems are about 90% gone. thanks for the ideas though guys. and catpickelsdog, u should probably refer to fish by their normal names and not their scientific names because you sound pretty smart when u do that but also snobby. but its kind of annoying in that most people don't know their scientific names so no need

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Not a very good way to win friends and get support. :headshake2:

I have to agree, although the scientific name might seem a little daunting, it's the best way to ID a specific species. You can, as stated above, go to three different fish stores and they will have the same fish and the names may be close but not the same.

Scientific name is the ONLY way to tell exactly what fish you are referring to. Also, when a scientific name is posted, anyone can take that name, copy and paste that into google images, and see exactly the fish your looking for. You can't do that with common names and be 100% sure that is the fish your looking for.

I have to agree 100% with CPD and Reefscape. First off, 2 dwarf angels in a 40G is a very very bad idea. I have read from many places that you need a 120-150G tank if you want to have even a chance of keeping 2 dwarf angels in the same tank. Since I had read that and been told that many times, and I never had a tank bigger than 75G, I have never once considered having 2 dwarf angels in one of my tanks.

As reefscape stated, the "yellow coris wrasse" is one of many common names that refer to half a dozen or so fish. I have had one myself for many years now. I know it isn't even in the coris family, and when you do a google image search for yellow coris wrasse it comes up with about 6 different fish all going by the same name. There are 3 spot, 4 spot, and banana wrasse that all go by that 1 common name, of which, none are part of the coris family.