Help weird bump on vlamingi tangs head

[Suicideissleep]

So in the pic you can see a hole in it well there is about 5 or six holes it was releasing a greenish browish red fluid yesterday out if one of the holes so i think it is draining but one section at a time. This showed up couple days ago but was just a small bump now its a half inch long by atleast a quarter inch high. Now tge holes look really red inside and meaty and input of what i can do or what it could be would be very helpful i tried looking everything up but no luck. At first i thought he bumped inti a rock it is a 17 inch fish just started growing his streamers month or two ago hope hes going to be ok

 

[Suicideissleep]

 

[jsker]

Could it be from a sting, then turning in to an infection. For animals, and humans this would require antibiotic or save. This I have no idea

 

[Suicideissleep]

Maybe aiptasia sting there is one by his sleeping hole is there anything i can give to him in my main tank or do i gotta find a huge qt tank

 

[Humblefish]

Could be Hexamita, commonly known as "Hole in the Head Disease". It is an internal parasite. Standard treatment for Hexamita is Metronidazole.

However, if this fish has Hexamita you should also be seeing white, stringy feces.

 

[Suicideissleep]

Was pooping normal yesterday that i could tell if it is that how do you cure that.

 

[Suicideissleep]

Also is that contagious

 

[Humblefish]

@Suicideissleep If you are not seeing stringy white poop, I would discount Hexamita being the culprit. I

However, it is contagious if other fish eat the stringy white poop. I've successfully treated it using metronidazole (Seachem makes a product called Metroplex.) You can either dose it directly into a QT, or soak it in the fish's food (the food is reef safe if used in conjunction with a binder such as Seachem Focus.)

 

[Suicideissleep]

Thank you i will look into it is it ok if the whole tank gets the food? Or how long dies it have to be qt? I have about 40 fish in a 300 gallon tank and a small amount of coral but alot of shrimp crabs snails starfish would that bother anything

 

[Humblefish]

Thank you i will look into it is it ok if the whole tank gets the food? Or how long dies it have to be qt? I have about 40 fish in a 300 gallon tank and a small amount of coral but alot of shrimp crabs snails starfish would that bother anything

You will be fine so long as you take certain precautions. Focus binds the medication to the food, preventing it from leaching out into the water column. Also, running carbon is a good insurance policy in case a little does leach out. But metronidazole is not a toxin like copper... it would take a high concentration of it in the water to cause a problem, and even then I think it would only irritate your corals/inverts.

 

[Suicideissleep]

K thank you very much for your help

 

[Suicideissleep]

Humble just had a thought would hole in the head puss? Never ran inti this before never seen it in the five years ive been reefing ive only seen the after math i have a hippo tang i reascued coupke years back that had bad scaring from it

 

[Humblefish]

Humble just had a thought would hole in the head puss? Never ran inti this before never seen it in the five years ive been reefing ive only seen the after math i have a hippo tang i reascued coupke years back that had bad scaring from it

It can. The lesions caused by Hexamita parasites lead to tissue decay. This can then cause secondary infections to occur and those can be puss like. However, unless you are seeing white stringy poop coming out of the fish... I am very hesitant to diagnosis this proof positive as Hexamita.

 

[Suicideissleep]

Well im going to try the meds it can cure a wide spread of things and cross my fingures otherewise im lost

 

[sunshinereefer]

I had a similar breakout with my orange shoulder - could not 100% positively confirm Head and Lateral Line Erosion (HLLE). See Article

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=16+2160&aid=2587

I treated mine with [TABLE="class: categoryname"]
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[h=1]Dr.G's Antibacterial Caviar [ Medicated Foods | Dr. G's Antibacterial Caviar Fish Food][/h]

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[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Had to go through 2 bottles before it made recovery. Only a small area of flesh is still recovering. Also if the fish is eating fine which was the case for me - fed a lot of seaweed of good quality. I used both anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial because it was not confirmed what exactly it was. All fish consumed this caviar and they were fine.

 

[Humblefish]

This product contains both Metronidazole and Kanamycin (an antibiotic), making it an excellent choice to use for this situation:

I treated mine with [TABLE="class: categoryname"]
[TR]
[TD]

Dr.G's Antibacterial Caviar [ Medicated Foods | Dr. G's Antibacterial Caviar Fish Food]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]