HLLE in hepatus tangs questions (with picture!)

[sarahkucera]

Hello,

I have a 7 year old 100 gallon reef tank that I got about 3 months ago.

The tank was (and still is) housing two hepatus tangs (6-7"), two yellow tangs (4") and two percula clowns. I have added a few other livestock, but they're all fine and happy.

When the tangs came to me with the tank they were all exhibiting HLLE, the hepatus much worse than the yellows. The previous owners had let the tank go to crap and had never fed them anything other than brine shrimp. They never even offered them any sort of greens.

The smaller of the hepatus is only slightly smaller than the other one, but he has it worse.
<img src="http://www.midnightmadness.org/sarah/saltwater/042306/IMG_1515.JPG" width=800 height=533>

They're better than when I got them, but I want them to heal up faster so they can be as happy as possible.

Is there anything else I can do?

Here's what I'm doing now:

One to two sheets of seaweed daily, offered morning and evening. The sheets are about 6 inces long and two inches across.
Mysis and brine shrimp offered twice daily,evening feeding heavier than AM feeding. I'm going to cut out the brine shrimp. I'm also going to start soaking the mysis in Selecon prior to feeding, I just picked up the Selecon today.
Cyclopeeze/mysis mix for the frogspawns and the mandarinfish of which the hepatus eat too.

Other creatures in the tank, all healthy and happy:
One 4" lawnmower blenny
One 3" mandarinfish
Two frogspawn corals
One small group of zoas
7 blue legged hermit crabs
3 astrea snails, 6 turbo snails, 12 (or so) cerith snails.
2 large serpent stars, maybe 6 -8 inches across fully extended
1 Sand sifting sea star about 4 inches across.
There are a ton of pods in the tank and also there are a bunch of bristleworms.

Here are my tank info and parameters.

100 gallon RR Oceanic with two corner overflows.
3 inches of sand bed/crushed coral bed.
Approx 125 lbs of live Fiji rock.
Huge sump, takes up half the cabinet.
Huge Skimmer, although I don't know the name of it.
4x96 CSL PC lighting, lighting on from 8:30AM to 10PM.

ph 8.2
nitrates 20mg/liter
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
salinity is 1.023

20 - 25% water changes done once monthly
I use Oceanic Sea Salt for the mixing.

Thanks for any advice, or anyone just saying for me to be patient and it'll take a while to heal up. I'm probably being pretty impatient, I know they're not going to heal overnight. But I sure wish they would start looking a lot better. I love them and want them to be happy in my house.

 

[BTTRFLYGRL]

Here is all you need to know....


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=785228

Your Tangs need a better variety of foods and vitamins......And ...Hippo Tangs grow to 1' and need at least a 6' tank. Yellows also get large, I would not advise keeping one in a 4' tank...but many do. IMO, it would be best to get the fish in good health and find all but one Yellow new homes [in a larger tank]
Good luck

 

[Steven Pro]

Here is an article I wrote on MHLLE,
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/sp/index.php

Improved water quality and diet usually do the trick.

 

[sarahkucera]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7335221#post7335221 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BTTRFLYGRL
Here is all you need to know....


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=785228

Your Tangs need a better variety of foods and vitamins......And ...Hippo Tangs grow to 1' and need at least a 6' tank. Yellows also get large, I would not advise keeping one in a 4' tank...but many do. IMO, it would be best to get the fish in good health and find all but one Yellow new homes [in a larger tank]
Good luck

These are the fish that were in the tank when I got it in February.
I am planning on setting up a large FOWLR (100 gallons or so, I've got my eye on a 120 long and am thinking of maybe putting it in my bedroom!) and putting one of the yellows and one of the hepatus in there.
In the meantime I want to do everything I can to help them in the tank they are in. I certainly don't want to rehome all of them at this point, as none of them are full grown, and I definitely plan to upgrade tanks and have a second large tank too.
When I first got them I thought that maybe the marks on their heads were from wedging themselves into the rock, and I did a lot of research on them before coming to the HLLE diagnosis. Judging by comparing their pictures to other pictures of fish with HLLE it's obvious to me now that this is what they are suffering from. It took me a while to get them to accept seaweed, but now they love it. Their previous owner was feeding them only brine shrimp once per day. The lesions appear to have gotten a lot better since I have gotten them eating better.

The Selecon should help, are there any other vitamins that I should add to their food? Will garlic really help, and if so, how should I add it to their feeding?
I have been considering feeding them live macroalgae as a nutritional boost for them to graze on. Do you think that will help too?

Just to give you an idea of how they have progressed since I have improved their diet, water quality, and lighting quality.
So they have been making some improvement. A lot of the areas of lesions look like they're healing and blueing up.

This is what the larger of the two hepatus looked like on the day I moved the tank, February 19, 2006. (A 14 hour ordeal!) I actually thought this guy was going to die on me, he hid for two days after the move.
<img src="http://www.midnightmadness.org/sarah/saltwater/move/DSC05213.JPG" width=600 height=420>

And this is what they looked like on February 24, 2006. I wish I had some closeups of them from this day to really show how bad the erosions were.
<img src="http://www.midnightmadness.org/sarah/saltwater/22406/DSC05346.JPG" width=600 height=402>

Thank you all for the links to HLLE information. You've been most helpful.

 

[BTTRFLYGRL]

WOW! The Tang is definitely improving..
I soak my fishes food in Vitachem. I alternate that with Selcon..You could use the Vitachem daily. Read that link I posted, lots of great info
As far as food...I feed Frozen Mysis, Emerald Entree, Marine Cusine, Prime Reef, Formula's One and Two, Cyclopeeze , ENRICHED Brine Shrimp Purple and green algae strips and a couple of other specialty foods for certain fish.Variety is key and as Steven stated, good water quality..
Those fish were lucky you came along, you'll have them healthy in no time