Blennie changing color

[kspink]

Hi,
We brought home our first fish yesterday. Our quarantine tank has been running for months (so has the main tank). All the water parameters in both tanks are the same. Temperature, pH, salinity are all stable. We even slowly increased the salinity to match the water at our LFS. Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate are all zero.
We purchased a red-lipped blennie. At the store he was doing fine. A little shy, but in good condition and eating. On the way home, he began to change color-getting brown blotches. We have him placed in the quaratine tank (after a short freshwater/methylene blue dip and appropriate aclimation). We left the lights out in the tank and kept the room dark. He did not get his normal coloration back, so we tried turning on the lights for a little while. He seemed to get some of his normal color back for a little while and was swimming a little but now has a really dark brown banding pattern. He is also not moving around much. We have noticed that the brown will fade and darken periodically.
Is this just stress?
Thanks for any advice you can give.
Katie

 

[brinkdrum]

Looks like just stress to me. The large spots him just maybe his way of showing that he's stressed, like a yellow tang does. I would just leave him in the q-tank and just observe. The dipping and stuff like that may just make him more stressed. He should settle down in time.

 

[kspink]

Just a little update.
Last night he was swimming around and had most of his normal color-just some blotchy patches around his head which get darker the closer we get to the tank. We fed him a little and he did eat. By late evening the dark patches were back over his entire body. And he seems to spend the nights up in a corner.