Feeding frenzy gone bad

So every night I feed the puffer a cocktail shrimp or a slice of fish. A couple of my tangs have balls enough to swipe in for a nibble. Last night the puffer missed his mark and the tang started to swim away with it, puffer b-lined on second go and nabbed the tangs mouth.

Literally took the tangs mouth off...

Good news is he can eat brine shrimp and small pellets. Took several hours of practice for him to hit his mark. At first he was coming up short and bouncing from one to the next without eating. I'm hoping for the best, expecting a handicapped fish but still good part of the aquarium. He is in QT right now so he doesn't have to compete and the other fish were trying to eat his lips.

 

Yea, I pulled the puffer and put in fuge. Don't need more mangled fish. I think this guy might pull through. Crazy as it sound, hes eating and respiration is normal

 

So, live brine has been the key, it stays in the water column and gives Mr brown ample tries to catch his food and readjust his aim. Once it hits the sandbeds there is zero outcome to eat.
I started with pellets which sunk too fast and didn't give him that practice to adjust. So after about four feedings of live brine I tried the pellets again and as long as I drop one at a time he moves slow enough to take his time and grab it. If I drop a few he moves too fast to try and snag them all.

Her is a picture to show just how bad it is. I'm not too familiar with fish anatomy but it looks like two sets of teeth? AA small serrated front set attached to the dangling lips and another larger set toward the back right at the sides of the tongue? Lucky bastard, another mm and the tongue would be gone.

 

Going to focus on feeding. Water quality is a given. The reason the water is cloudy is because I stirred the sand up retrieving all the uneaten food. Nothing in = dead fish and I worked too hard to get this guy used to captivity to simply give up. Kinda like a 3 legged dog. Still tries to catch the rabbit.

 

A 6" porcupine puffer,

Anyone recommend an antibiotic for this guy? Red is traveling back from injury.

 

This tang has brass balls. My hand didn't scare him. A couple weeks ago I fed the puffer and kept a pinch for the anemone and tang was nipping my fingers trying to get the food.

If this tang dies, I'm blaming the medicine(API melefix). Made the tank smell like bacitracin. Makes my eyes water. Says to treat every day for 7 days, I'm thinking 60% water change then dose.

 

3 days post de-lipping. 24 hours of melefix.
Redness subsided to the lips and his aim is spot on. Eating like a pig. Ill do a 7 day follow up picture

 

Went well until scar tissue grew over and for the most part closed up the mouth. Mr Brown didn't make it as of tonight