Blue Tang White Patches

[brclark82]

Help identifying white patches on the front belly of my tang.

He has ich that is pretty well managed but a spot or 2 will show up occasionally.

Currently behaves and feeds like normal but the larger white patches as opposed to the small white dots of ich are new as of today.

Nitrate- 13
Phos- 0.5
Salinity- 1.026
Temp- 78-78.5

 

[vetteguy53081]

Help identifying white patches on the front belly of my tang.

He has ich that is pretty well managed but a spot or 2 will show up occasionally.

Currently behaves and feeds like normal but the larger white patches as opposed to the small white dots of ich are new as of today.

Nitrate- 13
Phos- 0.5
Salinity- 1.026
Temp- 78-78.5

You have facial erosion that appears to be starting and the white spots appear to be bacterial. Assure first good water quality and fish should respond well to ruby Rally pro but best treatment would be in a separate tank with use of seachem Kanaplex. Some of the spots may also be rub marks from rocks in which they typically hise and dart into when startled.
For HLLE - it can cause pits and flesh missing mainly in tangs, angels and some rabbitfish. It is often caused by poor water quality, high use of carbon, poor water quality (elevated nitrate and ammonia) and inadequate/poor diet. It is not life threating in any way but offers secondary infection in some cases.
Maintaining GOOD water quality and diet are often the fixes and with severe cases, some healing.
Some foods to feed tang are :
LRS herbivore diet
Formula 2 flake and frozen
TDO Pellets
small plankton
Hikari Marine cuisine
Ocean nutrition veggie diet
spirulina brine shrimp
mysis shrimp
Prime reef
Nori seaweed basted with garlic extract

 

[Stealthreefer]

He ran into something he shouldn't have would be my guess.

 

[brclark82]

He always has been a very skittish fish and spends quite a bit of his day darting into rock crevices so maybe it’s abrasion…

My water quality I believe is pretty solid…no ammonia, somewhat high phosphates at 0.5 but nothing crazy for fish, nitrates are 13 and are very stable between 10-15 for months, stable Alk and other numbers

I do run ChemiPure Elite to try and get my phosphates down some more so maybe the carbon in that could be causing an issue but that’s the only carbon I run…I could pull it out and try just some GFO

He eats a half sheet of nori a day (no other seaweed eaters in the tank), TDO pellets and Prime Reef flakes in the AM and frozen mysis in the evening.

I soak the nori in selcon a couple times a week and he eats a ton at every meal and then picks on the nori throughout the day.

 

[MnFish1]

Agree - looks like the start of HLLE. I used chemipure (blue) - with no HLLE/ill effects for multiple years.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

He always has been a very skittish fish and spends quite a bit of his day darting into rock crevices so maybe it’s abrasion…

My water quality I believe is pretty solid…no ammonia, somewhat high phosphates at 0.5 but nothing crazy for fish, nitrates are 13 and are very stable between 10-15 for months, stable Alk and other numbers

I do run ChemiPure Elite to try and get my phosphates down some more so maybe the carbon in that could be causing an issue but that’s the only carbon I run…I could pull it out and try just some GFO

He eats a half sheet of nori a day (no other seaweed eaters in the tank), TDO pellets and Prime Reef flakes in the AM and frozen mysis in the evening.

I soak the nori in selcon a couple times a week and he eats a ton at every meal and then picks on the nori throughout the day.

The carbon in Chemipure does not seem to cause HLLE as readily as lignite carbon does.

While the white marks could well be scrapes, I also can't rule out that ich trophonts aren't mixed in there as well.

Jay