Anemone Died - Fish Dying

JamesS · Jan 23, 2020

Hope someone might be able to offer some suggestions? Was gone for work for about a week and when I left my anemone was looking a little sick, ie. mouth was open sometimes and spent most of his time retracted. Left for a business trip, came home, he looked about the same but next morning, last saturday (Jan 18, 2020) woke up to 5 dead fish, cloudy water and a dead anemone. Did an immediate water change, put new carbon into tank, I've done two more water changes since, the remaining fish look good but my Yellow Tang has stopped eating and looks like this...I"ve done a methylene blue bath once, I'm new to the hobby and not sure what I should do now? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Flippers4pups · Jan 23, 2020

JamesS said:
Hope someone might be able to offer some suggestions? Was gone for work for about a week and when I left my anemone was looking a little sick, ie. mouth was open sometimes and spent most of his time retracted. Left for a business trip, came home, he looked about the same but next morning, last saturday (Jan 18, 2020) woke up to 5 dead fish, cloudy water and a dead anemone. Did an immediate water change, put new carbon into tank, I've done two more water changes since, the remaining fish look good but my Yellow Tang has stopped eating and looks like this...I"ve done a methylene blue bath once, I'm new to the hobby and not sure what I should do now? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Looks like HLLE to me. Are you feeding any nori?

JamesS · Jan 23, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
Looks like HLLE to me. Are you feeding any nori?

Actually, I haven't since I've been back, I'll have to ask my tank sitter if she did it while I was away. I put some in there as soon as I saw your post, I don't know how I forgot about it, but I did.

What is HLLE? Can I do anything additional to the nori?

Than you

Schwen · Jan 23, 2020

Had an gbta get sucked into a powerhead last week durning the night. And woke up to cloudy nasty water. Only was like that a few hours unlike yours. Did immediate water change and then did partial water changes the next 3 days. 75%, 50%, 25%. This got everything back stable for me. Hopefully it will all work itself back out for you like mine did! Best of luck.

JamesS · Jan 23, 2020

Schwen said:
Had an gbta get sucked into a powerhead last week durning the night. And woke up to cloudy nasty water. Only was like that a few hours unlike yours. Did immediate water change and then did partial water changes the next 3 days. 75%, 50%, 25%. This got everything back stable for me. Hopefully it will all work itself back out for you like mine did! Best of luck.

Thanks, I was much more devastated than I imagined I ever would be. I want to do whatever I can to save the remaining fish and I do not want to lose this yellow tang also.

I don't know if it will do any good, but I sent off a water sample as well. It'll take a week or so to get the results. pH, Alkalinity, Ca and Mg are all right where they need to be. I've been checking ammonia with a salifert kit and have an ammonia badge in my sump, nothing has shown up so far. Just dont know what to do and feel like crap that I didn't remove the anemone before I left.

Schwen · Jan 23, 2020

JamesS said:
Thanks, I was much more devastated than I imagined I ever would be. I want to do whatever I can to save the remaining fish and I do not want to lose this yellow tang also.

I don't know if it will do any good, but I sent off a water sample as well. It'll take a week or so to get the results. pH, Alkalinity, Ca and Mg are all right where they need to be. I've been checking ammonia with a salifert kit and have an ammonia badge in my sump, nothing has shown up so far. Just dont know what to do and feel like crap that I didn't remove the anemone before I left.

We all make mistakes and hope nothing passes. I'm sure you thought the nem was gonna pull through. I would have done the same and hoped for the same. If you have the test kit I would check Nitrite and Nitrate to make sure those are still go as well. The water changes should have prevented them from going crazy, but just is nicer to know it's all good.

Eagle_Steve · Jan 23, 2020

JamesS said:
Actually, I haven't since I've been back, I'll have to ask my tank sitter if she did it while I was away. I put some in there as soon as I saw your post, I don't know how I forgot about it, but I did.

What is HLLE? Can I do anything additional to the nori?

Than you

Hlle is head and lateral line erosion. It can be overcome with good feeding and making sure the tang gets as much algae (nori or graciliria) as it can eat. I just got a rescue purple tang back from horrible hlle with good feeding and time.

you will need to watch for redness and deep pitting, as it may indicate a bacterial infection. If that happens the fish will need to go into QT and be treated for that.

JamesS · Jan 23, 2020

Eagle_Steve said:
Hlle is head and lateral line erosion. It can be overcome with good feeding and making sure the tang gets as much algae (nori or graciliria) as it can eat. I just got a rescue purple tang back from horrible hlle with good feeding and time.

you will need to watch for redness and deep pitting, as it may indicate a bacterial infection. If that happens the fish will need to go into QT and be treated for that.

Thank you for the help, I will be keeping a very close on this guy and giving him all the nori he can handle! I noticed that he didn't eat much this evening, mysis, so I'm hoping that won't become a problem??? Keep you guys posted

ca1ore · Jan 24, 2020

I guess it depends a bit on the size of the tank, and the anemone, but usually a dead anemone only affects the fish if it gets puréed by a power head. Nematocysts get broadcast around the tank and affect their gills. You’ve done the right things though, methylene blue to help calm them down and water changes. May also have had an ammonia spike which furthur degrades gill function. Whether the tang has HLLE or not is largely immaterial and not urgent. It develops over a longer period of time and is not immediately fatal.

vetteguy53081 · Jan 24, 2020

HLLE common in tangs and angels generally associated with poor water quality and/or diet
At minimum, feed:
Nori basted with garlic
Formula 2 flake and frozen
Mysis shrimp
Plankton
LRS herbivore diet
Spirulina brine shrimp

ADD GARLIC AND SELCON VITAMINS TO FOOD A COUPLE TIMES A WEEK