Hippo Tang, head & lateral line erosion

[Dwb859]

I have a smaller hippo tang that I've had for 6-7 months. He has a small mark on his face that doesn't have any pigment, along with a few small spots around it. I feed seaweed daily and feed brine shrimp & mysis every other day. What can I do to fix this? My tank has very low nitrates, as well as phosphates. My purple tangs and other fish look really healthy. I've heard these tangs are more susceptible to head and lateral line erosion than other tangs. Just want to know if others had this problem and if they had any luck fixing it. Thanks

 

[rpjaws74]

Do you run carbon in your tank? if you do that might be the cause. Take it out and see what happens. But theres reports that carbon cause HLLE so I would do some research.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Soak the seaweed in Selcon and vitamins. Also, make sure you dont have electrical current leaking into the water.

 

[Dwb859]

I use garlic and vitamin c. The tank has a ground probe.

 

[anbosu]

Try feeding a high quality pellet, there might just be some nutrient it isn't getting.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Good point on the pellets. Are you feeding primarily seaweed and brine/mysis only every other day? Hippos are not primarily vegetarians, unlike many other tangs, and thus won't do well on the diet you feed your purple tang. Hippos need a lot of meaty foods. I would feed the mysis every day for a while and also feed Rod's, NLS pellets, ON formula one, flakes, and chopped seafood fresh from the grocery store (shrimp, scallop, fish, clam). The brine isn't nutritious unless it is enriched with spirulina. Live blackworms are good if the hippo will eat them.

Garlic won't help. Soak your foods in Selcon and VitaChem so the fish gets more than Vitamin C.

 

[alton]

Spirulina Brine and foods soaked in Zoe cured my Chevron that developed hole in the head. It took about six months and when it was fully healed you could not even see a scar.

 

[Dwb859]

I'll try to start feeding some pellets and more brine/mysis. Thanks