Head and lateral line disease

[smiller]

:thumbsup:

 

[JRR]

Hi Gools,

What do you think caused this success? I really would like to know. How do you feed what are your Phophates, Nitrates? Do you have a deep sand bed if so for how long? Do you use certain trace elements/ vitamins? What brand of salt? Are there other tangs in your aquarium?

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Gools]

Hi Jim
I got the Purple from an online store, before he sold it to me he told me he had HLLE, so I got a cheap price on him. I figure it was just the stress from being caught and handled. I have an established tank, it's just over 4yrs old, with a 2" sand bed, give or take. No ideas what my phosphates or nitrates are, don't bother testing for that, although looking into phosphates, to see if it has any effect on my acros, but that's another subject. I use Tropic Marin salt, and only do a 30g water change every 4-6months, on my 180. I did soak all my frozen food, mostly mysis, in Kent Zoe, and Kent garlic. Also feed flake foods, which already had garlic additives added to it. Other then that I don't dose anything else to my tank. There are 2 other tangs in the tank, a mimic, and yellow. The yellow, and purple fought good for a day or 2 then that was it, the yellow taking the worst, and being a tad bit smaller. But now they are great. all my fish get along, and have no stresses. I think with a good mature/healthy tank, and good nutrition, stress free environment, this is a cureable disease.

 

[JRR]

I'm glad to know that it is a curable disease. That is great. What type of lighting do you have and one temp do you keep the water? I'm just trying to figure out what your doing? I have three purple tangs in a 500 gallon system along with a regal tang and the regal and one purple have the problem but they do not fight and all seem to get along. I would like to correct the two fish and try to prevent the others from having the problem.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Gools]

I have 2 400w, and 2 175w, with 4 54w T5 as supplimental lighting. My Temp ranges from 78- 83, I need a chiller. On a 500g, what kind of skimmer are you running? Water quality, is huge.

 

[Paul B]

Gools that is really fantastic, as was said it is a curable disease but if you let it go to long the fish will always be scarred. I think if you keep a tang long enough they almost always get it in a small tank. Tangs are always stressed and I don't care what you do. These fish are never seen alone in the sea, if they are alone they get eaten. I have seen thousands of them while diving and they are always in schools, sometimes huge schools. thats why IMO they are suseptable to this ailment. Of course we can reduce stress but we can't eliminate it completely in a schooling fish like a tang. I also believe from observation that most fish eat baby fish as part of their diet. If you look closely while diving around rocks you will see thousands of baby fish. These are eaten by everything including tangs. Vitamin A is stored in the liver of tangs and all fish including baby fish. A tang which is mainly an algae eater gets much of this vitamin by eating fish. We as aquarists rarely feed whole fish to out fish so they lose out on this vitamin. Once a week I soak flake or freexe dried food in Vitamin "A" and feed it to my fish. I think it is one reason my moorish Idol lived so long. I would not do this every day but once a week should be enough. I also have cured fish of HLLE like this. One I especially remember was a large beautiful French Angel with a severe case of it. A French Angel is black so it looks real bad with HLLE. In a couple of months of the vitamin A he was cured, unfortunaltely he was scarred but much of the color came back and he lived to a ripe old age with no further progression of the disease. Of course as Gools said, a larger tank would help greatly.
Have a great day.
Paul