What patch on Bristle tooth tang - please help diagnose.

[Hank The Tank]

I have a juvenile bristle tooth tang in my display tank for 1 week. I don't have a QT tank, just don't have room to set it up. This one patch showed up today on its left side. I did some new rockscaping yesterday and I'm hoping it is just a contusion against the new rocks. I don't have a quarantine tank so I'm nervous it will be contagious to the other fish.

Please help with diagnoses and recommendations on next steps.

Thank you and happy holidays.

 

[LOVEROCK]

Folloq

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

While that *could* be an injury, it is pretty large in area. Has the size been growing over time? Sometimes, small injuries develop into secondary bacterial infections that spread and grow in size. Unfortunately, treating those typically requires a small treatment tank, as you don't want to add antibiotics to your main tank.

What other fish are in the tank?
How long has the tank been set up?

Jay

 

[Hank The Tank]

While that *could* be an injury, it is pretty large in area. Has the size been growing over time? Sometimes, small injuries develop into secondary bacterial infections that spread and grow in size. Unfortunately, treating those typically requires a small treatment tank, as you don't want to add antibiotics to your main tank.

What other fish are in the tank?
How long has the tank been set up?

Jay

Thank you Jay for your reply.
The white patch appeared almost overnight. Although today, it seems to be shrinking/reduced. I'm hoping it is an injury and the tang is healing. Fingers crossed.

I do have two clowns and a bi-color blennie. The first 5 days the tang was introduced, I noticed all is peaceful and no chasing or fighting whatsoever. But did notice the tang was chasing the bleenie a little when I noticed the patch. Maybe they were rough housing a bit and that is when the injury occurred. It's back to peach right now.

The tank had been setup since August 2020 - so about 1.5 years old.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thank you Jay for your reply.
The white patch appeared almost overnight. Although today, it seems to be shrinking/reduced. I'm hoping it is an injury and the tang is healing. Fingers crossed.

I do have two clowns and a bi-color blennie. The first 5 days the tang was introduced, I noticed all is peaceful and no chasing or fighting whatsoever. But did notice the tang was chasing the bleenie a little when I noticed the patch. Maybe they were rough housing a bit and that is when the injury occurred. It's back to peach right now.

The tank had been setup since August 2020 - so about 1.5 years old.

Well, any reduction in size of the lesion after this short a time is a good thing, and points more to a minor scrape. Just keep an eye on it for now!
Jay

 

[adittam]

@Jay Hemdal I've noticed similar light-colored patches that appear and then disappear after about a day on my two-spot bristletooth tang. The definitely seem to be correlated with stress - i.e. - when I have to mess around in the tank for an extended length of time to glue down corals or rearrange rockwork. Is there such a thing as stress-induced spots that are not of a disease etiology? They seem to be MUCH too large to be ich...

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

@Jay Hemdal I've noticed similar light-colored patches that appear and then disappear after about a day on my two-spot bristletooth tang. The definitely seem to be correlated with stress - i.e. - when I have to mess around in the tank for an extended length of time to glue down corals or rearrange rockwork. Is there such a thing as stress-induced spots that are not of a disease etiology? They seem to be MUCH too large to be ich...

I've not seen that, but perhaps? I think one key issue is that it is on one side only - I would expect generalized stress markers to be more symmetrical - on both sides of the fish for example

Jay