Hlle

[Holyhands22]

Ok so im trying to gather as much info as i can about HLLE. i would like to learn more specific details about the disease. I know you can have a healthy established tank with ich and everything thrive and be healthy for years to come. I want to know more about hlle. What is it how to combat it. What to do if you buy a fish with it. Is it a vitamin deficiency or is it something else. How to battle it. I have seen about 6 purple tangs in the past month at different lfs with hlle. I want to learn more so i can battle this and hopefully we can all become better aquarist.

 

[HumbleFish]

Here's a good article to get you started. Everyone has their own pet theories as to what causes it: stray voltage, carbon, copper, etc. Personally, I'm on board with the vitamin deficiency theory. It has to be more than just a coincidence that soaking fish food in vitamin supplements seems to help a lot of fish with HLLE. Just look here for an example.

 

[sammy77]

Great read. Thank you. Battling this problem myself right now with my Hippo Tang.

 

[roenicknewf]

I have a purple tang that started getting it a few years back ..I started adding vita-chem to hikari marine A pellets (soaks it up really good) and it has healed up ..I use vita-chem every other day now ..

 

[HumbleFish]

Back when I was just a pup, I used to do aquarium maintenance. Almost every single one of our clients' fish developed HLLE. The owner only believed in feeding flake, romaine lettuce and raw shrimp. None of which are very nutritious. Coincidence? I think not.

 

[sammy77]

I have a purple tang that started getting it a few years back ..I started adding vita-chem to hikari marine A pellets (soaks it up really good) and it has healed up ..I use vita-chem every other day now ..

That looks great. I'm using the Vita-Chem, Marine C, and Zoe.

 

[Paul B]

Unfortunately no one has a clue as to what causes it or how to treat it. If it was carbon, tanks with no carbon should be free of it, they are not. If it was nutrition tanks with many of the fish spawning meaning they are fed the correct, vitamin enriched food, still get it, Stray voltage is probably the oldest theory and it holds more weight because only captive fish get it, not wild fish and every artificial reef tank has stray voltage. But again, no one knows for sure. Sometimes, very rarely, the fish gets cured, usually it gets worse. A fish such as a hippo tang can live with it for ten or more years as I have had them with it for that long. They loo horrible but besides that, seem fine.

 

[Holyhands22]

So what i can gather its just alot of speculation. Your guess is as good as any. There has to be a cause. I agree it is absolutely hideous looking

 

[sammy77]

So what i can gather its just alot of speculation. Your guess is as good as any. There has to be a cause. I agree it is absolutely hideous looking

That is the million dollar question....

 

[Holyhands22]

Is the common senses that changing dietary needs will help resolve the issue or have there been instances where diet tweaking not worked.

 

[triggreef]

I recently read a thread with a similar OP as yours, started three years ago. That guys fish had it bad. He began with the vitamins every day and just came back to post his results. The fish was now perfect. He said it didn't take that long but he just never came back to post it up til now.

I'm not going to look for it.

 

[Paul B]

Is the common senses that changing dietary needs will help resolve the issue or have there been instances where diet tweaking not worked

We have been keeping salt water fish for 40+ years. If it were that simple, it would have been eradicated, but it has not.

 

[Holyhands22]

Im not trying to get an answer or find a cure. Im bot vet no marine biologist. Im a kitchen manager for a restaurant. I do however enjoy this hobby. Im just trying to get as much experienced knowledge with this as i can. There are plenty of things we don't know about this hobby. The way we learn is through shared experiences. Taking from one thing adding to another thats how we can keep such beautiful things in out hones or businesses. Thats all in I'm trying to get is just experiences with the disease.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Ok so im trying to gather as much info as i can about HLLE. i would like to learn more specific details about the disease. I know you can have a healthy established tank with ich and everything thrive and be healthy for years to come.

Just curious: How do you know this?

 

[MrTuskfish]

Ok so im trying to gather as much info as i can about HLLE. i would like to learn more specific details about the disease. I know you can have a healthy established tank with ich and everything thrive and be healthy for years to come.

Just curious: How do you know this? Having a tank thrive for years is very rare and certainly not the norm. Ich commonly wipes out well established tanks when new fish are not quarantined and treated as needed. Most folks on this forum know thin, my comment is for the new hobbyist.

A little closer to your HLLE question. Nobody even knows exactly what causes HLLE. There have a couple of recent papers suggesting a link between carbon dust and HLLE. But I don't think this has reached the "proven" stage. In my memory, there are probably a dozen things linked to HLLE ; but all anecdotal theories. Pristine water, good diet, and vitamins will almost always clear it up. Some time is needed as well.

 

[Holyhands22]

Just curious: How do you know this? Having a tank thrive for years is very rare and certainly not the norm. Ich commonly wipes out well established tanks when new fish are not quarantined and treated as needed. Most folks on this forum know thin, my comment is for the new hobbyist. .

What im saying is with the proper care and treatment ich can be battled and you can thrive and have a healthy tank. There are numerous tanks that have had ich quarantined the fish and the tank thrives. If this is not true than maybe i spoke incorrectly. My point is we know what ich is and how to battle it. as it was stated earlier pristine water, good diet, and carbon are not always the be all fix All and therefore you really cant pinpoint a way to treat. All im trying to get is experiences that people have had with HLLE. Im not trying to cure anything. as we all know what works for one person could very well have the opposite outcome for someone else.

 

[Paul B]

. Im a kitchen manager for a restaurant. I do however enjoy this hobby. Im just trying to get as much experienced knowledge with this as i can.

We all learn from these forums but we also get eronious information from these forums.
HLLE has no definite cause that we know about but of course it has a cause. It could be a combination of carbon, stray electricity or cat puke. No one knows. All we do know is that it only happens with confined animals. But it is not from bad nutrition. If you have a tank full of spawning fish, that means those fish are in the best condition they will even be in. If a fish in that tank gets HLLE (as I have had numerous times) it is not from nutrition. My Hippo tangs usually get it after a number of years and my fish are fed only live food or frozen whole seafoods. I also collect food in the sea for them and almost all my fish are spawning and they live to 19 years or longer.

 

[Paul B]

I know you can have a healthy established tank with ich and everything thrive and be healthy for years to come.

MrTuskfish, I think what he is saying (and I think we discussed this before) is that you can have ich in a tank as my tank probably does. And not notice it, ever. When I say ever I mean at least 35 years as that is about how long it has been since I saw ich or any other paracite. There must be ich in my tank because I have not quarantined in that long and I add NSW along with creatures from the sea many times during the year. I also collect mud for the bacteria. I don't battle ich as it does not bother my fish some of which are 19 years old and still spawning. As a matter of fact all of my fish except a copperband and two gobies without mates are spawning including mandarins, clown gobies, blue stripe pipefish and cardinals. So is ich affecting my tank? Maybe, but for some reason it is not harming anything any more than ich in the sea harms anything. What it does, is keep their immune system in shape (like it does in the sea) so ich does not bother it. We as humans get shots of weakened viruses to help keep our immune system protect us. Of course there is more to it than that and I posted that numerous times, but ich does not always kill the tank as my tank can prove.
35 years with no ich symptoms seems long enough of a test to prove my theory but I hope to let the tank for another 8 years when it will be fifty. :dance:
But if you don't have my tank or my ideas, then you better quarantine.

References,
Me

 

[HumbleFish]

But if you don't have my tank or my ideas, then you better quarantine.

Paul, the day I move someplace where I can buy a steady supply of blackworms (wife won't let me grow them), I'm going to setup a tank in your honor; employing all of your methods (including not QT'ing for just that one tank).

 

[MrTuskfish]

MrTuskfish, I think what he is saying (and I think we discussed this before) is that you can have ich in a tank as my tank probably does. And not notice it, ever. When I say ever I mean at least 35 years as that is about how long it has been since I saw ich or any other paracite. There must be ich in my tank because I have not quarantined in that long and I add NSW along with creatures from the sea many times during the year. I also collect mud for the bacteria. I don't battle ich as it does not bother my fish some of which are 19 years old and still spawning. As a matter of fact all of my fish except a copperband and two gobies without mates are spawning including mandarins, clown gobies, blue stripe pipefish and cardinals. So is ich affecting my tank? Maybe, but for some reason it is not harming anything any more than ich in the sea harms anything. What it does, is keep their immune system in shape (like it does in the sea) so ich does not bother it. We as humans get shots of weakened viruses to help keep our immune system protect us. Of course there is more to it than that and I posted that numerous times, but ich does not always kill the tank as my tank can prove.
35 years with no ich symptoms seems long enough of a test to prove my theory but I hope to let the tank for another 8 years when it will be fifty. :dance:
But if you don't have my tank or my ideas, then you better quarantine.

References,
Me

Maybe you could consider writing resumes in your spare time. Yours is excellent!