I acquired this fella on Nov 16th and placed into my tank on Nov 17th.
This is a picture of it on Nov 18th. I was pretty depressed going to sleep that night
Nov 19th
I was a little more optimistic this day. I contemplated catching it and putting it through a hyposalinity QT treatment. I was on the fence for the longest time but Tom R convinced me otherwise and convinced me to monitor it for a few more days before intervening.
Nov 20th
All I can say is wow and it doesn't even look like the same fish.
Its not eating nori or mysis yet but it has been scraping algae off rocks and bare bottom since Nov 18.
Treatments:
Ozone through beckett skimmer with controller set at 430mv ORP
80W UV sterilizer
With all the talk about garlic, hey why not - I squeezed minced garlic's juice directly into the tank
Although the above treatments probably did help somewhat, the fish was very healthy and plump from the very beginning which I believe is the major contributor to its recovery....... so far.
I'll update more photos tomorrow hopefully it looks even better than today.