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The last pic you posted looks like the tang is malnourished and developing HLLE. You mentioned that it’s eating, is it eating much? Have you noticed any white stringy poop coming out of it?She looks the same as when I got her with the exception of some lost color and now today the spots. I was hoping the lost color was stress. Ive had her for about a week now. The color started fading in the last day or two. She was swimming fine and eating. Today she is swimming and eating but keeps playing dead for a minute or two then back to swimming for awhile.
The surgeon is pretty emaciated. It doesn’t have black spot disease, these spots are too diffuse to be that. Most likely it has flukes. My advice would be to try and confirm that by giving it a 5 minute FW dip, then look carefully on the bottom of the container and see if there are flukes.Got my 90 gallon cycled and running. Decided its already to small (I used to have a 125)... going 180 or bigger but figured I'd throw some fish in awhile. Picked up 2 clowns and a hippo tang for the kids. Unfortunately the hippo has something. Gonna have to qt. Was hoping someone could identify this for me. I never had a fish illness in all my time with saltwater fish.
It isn’t HLLE.
Jay doesn’t see HLLE starting, but Selcon is still a good idea as hepatus tangs are susceptible to it. Have you performed the FW dip yet?
Hepatus tangs develop two issues that resemble each other: classic HLLE and "epithelial thinning". Classic HLLE, with the deep coalescing pits, is tied to carbon use in every study that has been done. Epithelial thinning is where the fish's skin around the head becomes gets pale, but no pits develop. The one study that has been done of this seems to indicate a tie-in with metal toxicity, but I think it is more likely related to general stress and dietary issues. So - Selcon won't work for HLLE, but could work for epithelial thinning.
I though epithelial thinning was a precursor of HLLE so thanks for the clarification, Jay! Glad you’re part of the community.
Those look like Neobenedenia, they are the toughest fluke to deal with. I understand that you pulled the fish after 3 minutes because it is so weak, but if it survives for say, 24 hours, you should repeat the dip to see if you can dislodge any more flukes. This will only buy you time. Prazipro doesn't work well for this species of fluke - the Praziquantel dose is only 2.5 mg/l, and I've had Neo survive 4 mg/l. Then, the Neo eggs are not affected at all. These eggs can take up to 30 days to hatch. Hyposalinity for 35 days does work.Of course this is the weekend I have to work overtime. I couldn't stay there knowing this fish is suffering. Rushed home and did a freshwater dip. It appears jay is correct. Flukes in the bin. I only left her in for 3 minutes. She's not doing well at all. Since there is nothing in the tank I dosed the whole tank with prazipro (quite the price tag on this medication). All I can do now is wait.
