Spots on tang

[Wolf8895]

I came home from being out of town and my blue eye kole has what looks like faded spots all over it. Doesn’t look like sharp white dots like ich and there aren’t any on it’s fins. What might this be? Stress spots? It’s eating like a pig and not flashing or clamping. Tried to get a photo but it moves fast.

 

[fishguy242]

Hi, can you try video ? pull stills out of video ?
@Jay Hemdal #fishmedic

 

[Wolf8895]

Sick Tang?

Here’s a link to a YouTube short of it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sick Tang?

Here’s a link to a YouTube short of it.

Video is quite dark (best under white lighting). Off the top, I do see a high development of HLLE (erosion).
HLLE which 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

Add selcon vitamins to foods occasionally

 

[Wolf8895]

Thanks! That would make sense as my nitrates have been going up since I added fish and started feeding. I've changed my display tank light as I figured out it was old and was better at growing algae than coral. I've since moved it to my sump as a refugium light and sure enough, my cheato and ulva have quadrupled in size in a week and now require pruning. So hopefully this arrangement will start to bring the nitrates down.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

How long were you out of town? HLLE does not show up over in a week like that. Were there ANY spots before you left? HLLE develops gradually, over weeks to months.

If you see any spots on the fins, that is not HLLE.

Jay

 

[Wolf8895]

I was gone for most of 6 days. I thought I had seen a little bit of a change before I left but this fish is really shy and hard to get a good look at if it knows you are nearby.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I was gone for most of 6 days. I thought I had seen a little bit of a change before I left but this fish is really shy and hard to get a good look at if it knows you are nearby.

I know it’s tough to get clear photos/video, but if you can get better ones, I might be able to tell you more.

Is the tangs eyes cloudy? They seem to be in the picture…..

Jay

 

[Wolf8895]

The eyes don't appear to be cloudy but I just cleaned the glass really well and will try to get a better picture. once the water clears up from scraping I'll try again.

 

[Wolf8895]

Finally got another under whites of the little devil.
Tang Video

And a picture

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Finally got another under whites of the little devil.
Tang Video

And a picture

The faded area just beneath the dorsal fin is too high up to be HLLE. Some of the marks behind the eye could be HLLE, but something else is mixed in there.

Do you see this fish scratch/flash at all?

Jay

 

[Wolf8895]

No scratching, flashing or anything. It acts completely normal. Eats good, active swimmer.

 

[Wolf8895]

Just checked with my multimeter and there's no stray voltage in the tank.

 

[Wolf8895]

Fish seems fine. My clown is unaffected. I think 2 of my fish went carpet surfing while i was gone also. Can't find the bodies though. My nitrates and phosphates are dropping rapidly since I've changed the light over my fuge. Hoping the water improvements cause everything to rebound.

 

[Wolf8895]

Spots continued to spread until fish lost almost all color. Clownfish showed up with it overnight. Now all 4 fish are presumed dead. Couldn’t find the clown bodies.

Starting over with a fallow period. Guess I should coral shop now so I don’t introduce anything later.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Spots continued to spread until fish lost almost all color. Clownfish showed up with it overnight. Now all 4 fish are presumed dead. Couldn’t find the clown bodies.

Starting over with a fallow period. Guess I should coral shop now so I don’t introduce anything later.

Sorry to hear. I was focused on this just being limited to the tang since the clowns didn't have any symptoms. Now that they died, it is apparent the tank had a major parasite outbreak - I'm guessing velvet (Amyloodinium) in this case.

Jay