Fungus? "eaten" looking round patches

[zuzecawi]

Whatever this is, it's not ich. No fuzziness, it isn't spreading fast, and it's doing damage that is SUNKEN on the fish. Started as a patch near my sailfin tang's eye, actually, the nostril scale. Widened to about 2 cm roughly round looking sunken patch of eaten looking whitish flesh. I thought it might be the start of HLLE and increased HUFA's and vitamins. Then I noticed a similar patch on the rear side of my mandarin dragonet. And now I can clearly see (month later) two similar patches on the upper lip/face of the lawnmower blenny. The mandarin apparently has completely healed and no longer exhibits the patch, his body just filled it in from the inside out and now is unblemished. The patch on the sailfin tang's face expanded some, then stopped, and now appears to be slowly shrinking, although there is a secondary smaller (pencil mark sized) patch above the eye, and it does not appear to be growing, but I'm not sure it's shrinking. The two patches on the blenny's face are similar sized and very white/fleshy colored, again, sunken.
Is this a fungus? I've NEVER seen anything like this in 16 years of salt. I feed a mixture of nori, Sprungs' purple seaweed, O.N. brown seaweed, Cyclopseze, frozen Form. 1 & 2, mysis, live brine fed zoecon, zoecon soaked prime reef, and live gracilaria. I do bi-weekly water changes, my parameters are golden (8.2 ph, 12 dkh, 465 ca, 0 nitrates/ammonia/phos/nitrites/copper, 1280 mg) and I don't have any obvious pollution problems. My sps corals are all doing great and expanding rapidly. I can't think that this is HLLE when it is appearing on all three fish. I have no other fish, although I did add anthias some few months back, after 4 weeks QT, only to have them all get killed/harassed by the lawnmower blenny. Now I'm wondering if I QT'd them long enough and if maybe they didn't die of other factors as well as the lawnmowers' harassment.
The lawnmower has left a nickle sized bite on the side of the tang, and could possibly have the spots on his face from spining by the tang. But they look dead on like the same spot that is on the tang's nose, and like the same spot that the mandarin recovered from.
Any ideas?

 

[Hattie B]

hum, no pic?

a pic would help.

the pitting you describe is a symptom of MHLLE though.

And nitrates undectable and a good varied diet..

got me, I want to see what they look like =)

 

[BTTRFLYGRL]

Vibro or Uronema infection..
Vibro is bacterial and pretty common...Uronemosis is a kind of parasite..Both cause similar skin damage.

Uromena would have probably killed the fish by now..It can be treated with Formalin dips or Nitrafurizone [sp?]

Vibro can be treated with antibiotics. Nitrafurizone also works here..I have used Furan-2 with success...Noga's book suggest Oxytetracycline or sulfonamides.

Bifuran can be given orally..which is the preferred method of treatment for Vibro..You can buy Bifuran at Liveaquaria.com

Reduce stress...this is vital for both above conditions

 

[zuzecawi]

Stress is probably caused only by the dratted lawnmower blenny... and an update... there are DEFINITELY parasites. As stated before, the same pattern of wounds appeared on the blenny and the mandarin, and while the mandarin recovered, the blenny and the tang did not.
The blenny is now showing signs of improvement, and the tang is as well, but I distinctly saw a wood tick like parasite attached to the tang's body right below the eaten looking spot. It took a bunch of nori and a magnifying lens to get a good look, but it was very clearly the round butt of some kind of bug. Ick. I hate ticks. This is like an ocean tick. We had a brief bout of ich, lasted 24 hours, and then cleared. This happens periodically in my tank, it usually doesn't bother me.
The tang is showing good health otherwise, beautiful color, round and fat body, no signs of lateral line erosion, no signs of any further damage, healing from the usual battle wounds with the evil blenny, changing colors as usual. Eating like a pig, as usual. I've started dosing the tank with selcon as well as zoecon, selcon, and crushed garlic, my skimmer is going crazy but the tang actually seems to like the stuff.
The blenny has gone to hang with the cleaner shrimp, the tang is not going near them beause the blenny is always there. So I added a new group of cleaner shrimp and they've set up shop on the opposite side... hopefully they'll assist. I'm going to attempt to capture the blenny again in hopes of easing the stress... that fish really is the most darn aggressive vegetarian I've ever seen.
I very well can't put the sailfin tang in my quarantine tank, it's way too small and I'd be afraid the stress and lack of oxygen would kill the poor guy. He's the star of the tank, and seems to be holding his own against the odds here, but I would like to assist as much as I can.
Can the formalin dips be done without QT'ing the fish in question? Or would they affect my inverts? Let me upload some pictures, I have shots from early nov, when I first noticed the small spot, to mid Dec, when it started to expand rapidly, and today. It peaked at christmas, and was noticeably from the eye almost all the way around the front of the head. I'm not sure that the parasite I saw today was the cause or a opportunist like the 24 hour ich outbreak. Now remember guys n gals, this is only one ONE SIDE of the tang. Not bilateral. And it appeared in a similar facial location on the blenny, although on the mandarin it was on its side posterior. Very weird. Okay, off to do pics at photobucket

 

[zuzecawi]

Okay, here's images. These are all of the tang in the same range of color changing... he goes from nearly total black to really really pale grey with lots of yellow and blue within moments, and in the mornings/lights off he's very solid blue gray with white belly... coolest thing ever. Sometimes the bars are black black and sometimes they're blue grey. Sometimes even reddish grey. It's hard to get pictures, he's quick and has a LOT of hiding places. (With several hundred pounds of rock, that's an understatement.)
November:

Early December (wish I had pics of when it was biggest but he wouldn't pose):

Today:

The first two pics were under 20K lighting that was gettin pretty toasted, today is 18K and brand new.

 

[zuzecawi]

Sorry about the quality on this one, the blenny moves quick.

This is the tang in a darker color phase, the blemish is very clear here. I wish my camera were better, the inside of the blemish looks mottled, flesh is starting to grow back from the center, exactly like it did on the mandarin when he healed.

 

[Hattie B]

HUm, looks like it was the start of MHLLE to me on the tang. If it was Vibrio it would have gotten pretty bad pretty fast and more the likly ulcerated.

It looks to be healing, so I would keep up with the water quality and good food.

The parasites could be a parasitics copepod? Since you saw the bug check out Melves page there should be an identification of what one looks like and see if that was it.

 

[zuzecawi]

You know, this is just got me spinning. I mean, I thought the same... it's damage on a tang, so it MUST be head and lateral line erosion right? But the same dang marks are on the blenny!!! Since when do blennies get it?
I hope that you're right, Hattie, because if it's that it's just my fault and it can be corrected. I don't know, I'm really examining everything here. I do 21 gallon water changes weekly, my water parameters are really golden, I make my own kalkwasser because the commercial stuff didn't match my standards on iodine, strontium, and magnesium levels, I test twice a week, the only thing I can think is there was a one month period where I didn't replenish my live gracilaria. And the anthias. There was that addition of three dispar anthias back in October I think, I'd QT'd them for four weeks and they started looking thin so I threw them in the main, they did well for about a month but slowly got picked off by the blenny. I'd wake up and find him ripping around the tank with a little golden corpse in his mouth. This blenny is a real devil! It wasn't long after the last one died that I saw the damage starting on the tang. And I noticed it on the blenny about a month (again!) later. And the mandarin.
There is one thing though that might have an effect here... I keep my tank cooler than most people do. My tank runs a steady 74-76. Anything higher and I lose inverts. I've switched thermometers, so it isn't a case of badly calibrated temp readings. It's just... my shrimp and snails don't like life above 76.
Either case, I've increased variety of food again, now we're feeding green nori, brown seaweed selects, sprungs purple, atlantic dulse, asian market red round flat disk of vietnamese seaweed, japanese wakame, I recently bought selcon to alternate with the zoecon, I also purchased some cyclopeeze flake, I've got my usual blend of brineshrimpdirect.com red flake and kelp flake, I've stepped up the garlic, and the usual mix up of formula 1, formula 2, prime reef, mysis, and the addition of squid guts, as well as sweetwater zooplankton (which, incidentally, my gourami in the fw tank loves as well). FWIW I'm feeding several times a day in small amounts. It's a good thing I'm running a downdraft skimmer! And there's a good pound of live gracilaria in the main and another in the refugium. If there's anything else nutrition wise that I can add to the regime, or that I should change, by all means tell me!

Ack. Fish. They're almost as hair-frying as two year olds. Atleast the two year old listens when I tell him to be nice. If only the blenny would do the same!