Tang HLLE and Aquarium Covers

[HuduVudu]

aufwuch feeders

Lasse, what is this?

 

[Lasse]

Aufwuch feeder is a misspelled Aufwuchs feeder It is the same as periphyton feeder. You understand I do not like Wikipedia links - but nevertheless - here is one more

Periphyton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sincerely Lasse

 

[HuduVudu]

Aufwuch feeder is a misspelled Aufwuchs feeder It is the same as periphyton feeder. You understand I do not like Wikipedia links - but nevertheless - here is one more

Periphyton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sincerely Lasse

Thank you Lasse.

Yah, Wikipedia always there in the top 5 results waiting for you to click into ignorance.

 

[HB AL]

I run carbon, have a glass top, and don’t feed nori and all my fish including the 3 tangs (hippo, yellow, purple) are as healthy as can be. I think water quality and chemistry is the #1 thing to look at if your fish have hlle.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

If it is tested - when I have to accept it. But do you think that activated carbon is the only cause?

Sincerely Lasse

Lasse,

I did find a copy of an article that preceded my HLLE paper. This wasn't peer-reviewed, but it contains information that wasn't in the paper itself.

Jay

 

[Lasse]

Thank you for the paper. I´m convinced that active carbon can be one source to HLLE - but that was I before this discussion too. However I´m not ready to total rule out the Spironucleus link according to tangs. Fishbase report it for A. achilles but the reference is Bassler

Important to stress - my reason why not role it out totally for tangs is not based on experiences, it is only based on how the digestive system is designed

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Zionas]

Diet, stray voltage, use of carbon and poor overall parameters are primary causes of HLLE. Never heard of covers or tops being a cause.

 

[HuduVudu]

Diet, stray voltage, use of carbon and poor overall parameters are primary causes of HLLE. Never heard of covers or tops being a cause.

Stray voltage is not a cause and as per the discussion in this thread diet is very likely not a causitive factor.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Stray voltage is not a cause and as per the discussion in this thread diet is very likely not a causitive factor.

Yeah, stray voltage is an idea that just wont die! Don’t get me wrong about the nutrition angle, my main point is that peer reviewed studies haven’t been done on nutrition issues yet. We all know the word comorbidity now, diet and water quality and carbon use may all be in cahoots here. We just need some studies (grin).
Jay

 

[HuduVudu]

Yeah, stray voltage is an idea that just wont die! Don’t get me wrong about the nutrition angle, my main point is that peer reviewed studies haven’t been done on nutrition issues yet. We all know the word comorbidity now, diet and water quality and carbon use may all be in cahoots here. We just need some studies (grin).
Jay

As we say in Texas git-r-dun

 

[Fastpitch]

My head is just spinning from all this. Carbon seems to be the prime suspect. But I am running ROX. And others do with great success. I will keep Nori in the tanks daily now, but my tang seems not to prefer it.

I will say that his color seems to have improved a little since I installed egg crate. My PH was at 8, but I still suspect I did not have adequate gas exchange. In any case he is still far far away from being cured.

It is all a mystery and I am not sure there is an answer that I will ever find. Some have never had a problem with HLLE. Others struggle and never find a solution. And it seems that there is no known rational explanation as to why.

 

[Fastpitch]

Diet, stray voltage, use of carbon and poor overall parameters are primary causes of HLLE. Never heard of covers or tops being a cause.

I am not advocating glass tops as a cure for anybody, however my LFS opinion is that glass covers limit O2 gas exchange and therefore can create stress in tangs. At a certain level it makes sense to me and at this point am giving anything a try.

 

[HuduVudu]

I am not advocating glass tops as a cure for anybody, however my LFS opinion is that glass covers limit O2 gas exchange and therefore can create stress in tangs. At a certain level it makes sense to me and at this point am giving anything a try.

I am a HUGE advocate for gas exchange. I have posted that many times here. I lived on the reef for three years. If you saw the amount of wave action that the reef receives constantly you would understand my position. Some time ago I went to the NOAA buoy data in Florida. The first ten feet of the water was over saturated near (what I could discern as) reef zones. Not all reefs are that high but it lends credence to my view. It might be confirmation bias I will definitely concede that, but I have had great success by insuring my tanks have very large water volume turn over and open tops.

If nothing else your other fish will thank you for the improved exchange. I certianly wish I could get the type of gas exchange in my house as the ocean has right now

 

[Lasse]

my LFS opinion is that glass covers limit O2 gas exchange

IMO - the skimmer is the best gas changer you have in the system. IMO - Glas cover does not limit the gas exchange - IMO - as worst it can alter different gases concentration but I doubt that oxygen is one of those in an aquarium with photosynthetic corals.

1. It is plenty of it in normal air - it will take a long time before it will be depleted
2. During daytime the oxygen content in the "locked" air will be restored with oxygen produced by the photosynthetic process

I am a HUGE advocate for gas exchange.

Me too - and that´s the only reason why I have change my opinion about oversized skimmers. I was a huge fan of skimmerless systems before but in my limited space - I can´t use a rissler filter - I need a good skimmer

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Fastpitch]

IMO - the skimmer is the best gas changer you have in the system. IMO - Glas cover does not limit the gas exchange - IMO - as worst it can alter different gases concentration but I doubt that oxygen is one of those in an aquarium with photosynthetic corals.

1. It is plenty of it in normal air - it will take a long time before it will be depleted
2. During daytime the oxygen content in the "locked" air will be restored with oxygen produced by the photosynthetic process

Me too - and that´s the only reason why I have change my opinion about oversized skimmers. I was a huge fan of skimmerless systems before but in my limited space - I can´t use a rissler filter - I need a good skimmer

Sincerely Lasse

Good points. That was my first response to the LFS when they said I was suffocating my tank. "But I have a skimmer!". But then I thought to myself that my skimmer is definitely NOT oversized. Who knows....

 

[Ocean Blue]

Hi I am new to the forum and came across this thread whilst trying to better knowledge myself on HLLE/HLLES. Both my tangs have come down with the symptoms over the past few months and originally I believed it was down to food. I used to feed my fish a Vitalis Marine grazer pellet daily and live/frozen/flake food on a rota. I gave up trying to feed nori as my great big Hippo would always just rip it off whatever I attached it to, and it would just end up getting lost in rock work or the sump etc. When I first noticed the symptoms showing I also realised my clowns had learnt to not only remove the Vitalis Marine Grazer from its sucker but pass it to each other in some form of rugby tackle against the other fish and throw it into their anemone. Great I thought - how long have they been doing that for?! Well I came across IM gourmet grazer and went back to nori sheets but the symptoms are still worsening. It now turns out my partner put in a bag of very dusty carbon, and having read your thread and the papers attached that this may be my problem? Last week he removed that bag and put in a Fluval carbon bag. I have found some valuable information here but I don't know where to go go from here. Am i looking at having to do large water changes and cleaning the sand bed with a syphon? I no longer have a quarantine tank as other half leant it to a friend and we never got it back. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[Fastpitch]

Hi I am new to the forum and came across this thread whilst trying to better knowledge myself on HLLE/HLLES. Both my tangs have come down with the symptoms over the past few months and originally I believed it was down to food. I used to feed my fish a Vitalis Marine grazer pellet daily and live/frozen/flake food on a rota. I gave up trying to feed nori as my great big Hippo would always just rip it off whatever I attached it to, and it would just end up getting lost in rock work or the sump etc. When I first noticed the symptoms showing I also realised my clowns had learnt to not only remove the Vitalis Marine Grazer from its sucker but pass it to each other in some form of rugby tackle against the other fish and throw it into their anemone. Great I thought - how long have they been doing that for?! Well I came across IM gourmet grazer and went back to nori sheets but the symptoms are still worsening. It now turns out my partner put in a bag of very dusty carbon, and having read your thread and the papers attached that this may be my problem? Last week he removed that bag and put in a Fluval carbon bag. I have found some valuable information here but I don't know where to go go from here. Am i looking at having to do large water changes and cleaning the sand bed with a syphon? I no longer have a quarantine tank as other half leant it to a friend and we never got it back. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you

I play saltwater hobbyist in the AA league, but my advice is to try to hit everything. Carbon, O2, Diet, Voltage, NO, PO. Then see what happens. None of it works for me, but maybe you will have success. I could be speaking out of turn, but I have come to believe that no one really knows.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi I am new to the forum and came across this thread whilst trying to better knowledge myself on HLLE/HLLES. Both my tangs have come down with the symptoms over the past few months and originally I believed it was down to food. I used to feed my fish a Vitalis Marine grazer pellet daily and live/frozen/flake food on a rota. I gave up trying to feed nori as my great big Hippo would always just rip it off whatever I attached it to, and it would just end up getting lost in rock work or the sump etc. When I first noticed the symptoms showing I also realised my clowns had learnt to not only remove the Vitalis Marine Grazer from its sucker but pass it to each other in some form of rugby tackle against the other fish and throw it into their anemone. Great I thought - how long have they been doing that for?! Well I came across IM gourmet grazer and went back to nori sheets but the symptoms are still worsening. It now turns out my partner put in a bag of very dusty carbon, and having read your thread and the papers attached that this may be my problem? Last week he removed that bag and put in a Fluval carbon bag. I have found some valuable information here but I don't know where to go go from here. Am i looking at having to do large water changes and cleaning the sand bed with a syphon? I no longer have a quarantine tank as other half leant it to a friend and we never got it back. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you

In this case, timing helps to identify the “smoking gun”...carbon would need to be used on the tank before the symptoms started, usually 2 to 4 weeks. Removing the carbon helps, but the loose dust also needs to be removed and that is tough to do (vacuuming, etc). The final bit of bad news is when the lesions reach a certain size, they don’t ever seem to heal....
Jay

 

[Paul B]

Actually no one knows exactly what causes HLLE but everyone has a theory, including myself.
It is not a disease but a condition of captivity as wild fish do not get it.
The latest theory (which I do not fully believe) is carbon fines from activated carbon.

Electricity, nutrition and water conditions have been suggested but none of these seems plausible because if a fish is eating well and there is no carbon or stray electricity in the water, fish, especially tangs still get it.

It is also not curable in the later stages because the epidermis actually disappears but the fish can look a little better. It will always be scarred unless it is a very mild case.

My theory is that because all fish have a Lateral line which is a bundle of nerves that run along the sides of all fish and let them know what is next to them and allows them to navigate in total darkness, this line can "feel" everything that is near the fish. It also allows fish, especially tangs to swim in schools right next to each other without hitting each other. It allows them to fit in a small space in a coral reef without getting cut

HLLE or Lateral line erosion always starts on the head right where the lateral line enters the brain.

A fish in the sea has nothing around it except other fish, but in a tank it can sense the glass sides of the tank and the bottom. Fish in the sea don't generally swim a few inches over the bottom or constantly a few inches from a glass wall. A wall they can't see by the way.

This constant bombardment of impulses to the lateral line, eventually erodes it causing HLLE.

I also feel this is the reason some fish, like tangs, lookdowns, copperbands etc have tall, flat bodies compared to say a makeral. That shape allows the fish to have a much longer lateral line. Those fish have the worst cases of the condition.

This is also the reason Great White Sharks can't be kept in square tanks with straight sides, they go nuts and die because Great White Sharks have a much more sensitive lateral line than all other fish which allows them to find all those accountants that are floundering around in the water.

A smaller tank will make the condition worse as will quarantine in a small tank. I also feel copper will stress the fish more accelerating the condition. Many fish get the condition in quarantine and quarantine tanks rarely use carbon.

You can clearly see the lateral line arching over the back of my copperband here. It's the shinnier line of scales about 2/3rds up the side of the fish.
It's that line of scales that start near her eye and is slightly raised from the rest of the scales. All fish have this but on some it is harder to see. That is the most important sense on a fish and they couldn't navigate without it. It is also why you can't catch a fish with a net unless you trap it against something and why fish never crash into the glass even though they can't see it.



My present Hippo tang is a beautiful Royal blue and he has never eaten vegetable matter. After about a year so far, no signs of HLLE.

 

[Paul B]

You can see the lateral line on this Anthius. It is a little darker on this fish.


You can see it here.


Here.


On this Sunburst Anthius it is a little harder to see


You can barely see it on a Bangai Cardinal because most of it is hidden just at the top of the upper black band, and it extends past that band to the head.



Very conspicuous on this fluke.