Large Angel + HLLE Scarring Permanent?

[tanglovers]

Hi All,

A freind of mine who works at an LFS rescued a 5" or so chrysurus angel. It was being fed an inappropriate diet and developed a very serious case of HLLE. He has had it at his house now and the HLLE has stopped getting worst but not really made much improvement as far as scarring. The angel is very healthy and east a varied diet now.

My question is.

With the proper environment and diet will the scarring ever go away or will this angel always have significant scarring due to its poor nutritional diet at the previous home?

Thanks!

 

[dones20]

it will have some to none of the scarring left but if cared for properly it should recover nicely with very little scaring if any at all i have had multiple tangs in the past that i have rescued from fellow reefers and some have had this difficiency really badly and have made a full recovery and till this day is totaly unnoticable

 

[tanglovers]

Very interesting and good to know!

Any other experiences with people?

 

[Steven Pro]

In my experience, scarring around the face and down the lateral line can make almost a complete recovery, but fin erosion (if it has any) is another story.

 

[JHemdal]

As I've posted about before, I have NEVER seen HLLE resolve without first moving the fish to a new aquarium. Remember - the relationship between HLLE and diet has not been well researched. The few studies that were done involved moving the fish to new aquariums - adding a variable to the study that has been known to resolve HLLE by itself. I've also demonstrated remission of HLLE by moving fish to new aquariums and not changing the diet at all. (Hemdal 2006).

Since this angel was moved to a new environment, if this aquarium has had no history of HLLE, it is likely that the problem will not progress. Will the lesions heal completely? That depends on how severe they are and how long the fish was afflicted with the problem. Can you post a picture?

Jay

 

[tanglovers]

I will see if he can get a pic of it. From what I was told this fish was on a mostly freshwater fish diet (cichlid sticks and flake I believe). Other fish in the tank did also have issues with HLLE from what I was told.

Is this something that takes years and years to clear up/heal or something six months to a year type thing?

I believe the previous owners had the fish for roughly 10-12 months.

Thanks Guys!

 

[BengBear]

Emperor angel in the tank had some holes, and I had tried feeding with angel formula from ocean nutrition. Noticed the holes growth slowed down.

It seems to me this the correct diet, as the JV fish (turning adult) is more colorful now. Before the formula diet it was rather pale.

Is there some other better food to help speed up the healing process?

Heard of Boyd Vita Chem, but now so available in Singapore.

 

[IchthyoloChris]

IME, scarring depends on severity of HLLE. FWIW, (with all due respect to Jay - this is not intended as a counter to Jay's statement) I've seen it completely reversed without changing tanks (only diet), but those may have been simple cases of what (more than likely) tends to be a complex condition. I suspect HLLE has more than one cause. Case in point - most hypotheses seem to revolve around nutrition, but internal parasites can cause nutritional deficiencies as well as poor husbandry. Success with switching tanks is interesting. I have not seen the studies. Jay, any thoughts as to why the tank-switch solution seems to be effective? Have you ever seen any work done with stray voltage & HLLE? Just curious.

 

[saltyguy51]

I bought a 7" Emperor Angel from a man and it was in perfect health but have had so many problems with him and just when every thing seems to be all healed i now see small holes or pits in his head and all he will eat is mussels, algee sheets and tetra freeze dried jumbo krill, so is that a good enough diet for him and I even put a grounding strap on the tank so now I am puzzeled!!

 

[IchthyoloChris]

saltyguy51, if that's all your emperor will eat, then you might want to try adding Selcon to mussels (I take it their frozen [?]) &/or the freeze dried krill. Longterm, it would be beneficial to continue trying to wean it onto additional foods, especially one of the frozen formulas. Assuming you've already tried a lot of the available frozen foods, I'm surprised the emperor prefers freeze-dried krill over frozen.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13611932#post13611932 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JHemdal
As I've posted about before, I have NEVER seen HLLE resolve without first moving the fish to a new aquarium. Remember - the relationship between HLLE and diet has not been well researched. The few studies that were done involved moving the fish to new aquariums - adding a variable to the study that has been known to resolve HLLE by itself. I've also demonstrated remission of HLLE by moving fish to new aquariums and not changing the diet at all. (Hemdal 2006).

+1. It is almost tiring to read of so many people who insist it is diet based. It may be a contributing factor, but it can just as likely be salinity, elementals in the water, etc. A porper diet is important for any fish under any stress, but people should not be decieved into thinking it will "cure" HLLE.

 

[JHemdal]

Chris,

Stray voltage is a red herring, there is no correlation with that and HLLE. Same with adding HUFAs to the diet. I have never been able to resolve the issue with Selcon being sold at room temperature. INVE, the company that produces SELCO sells it in nitrogen charged foil packs, that once opened, have a 45 day shelf life - in the refrigerator. How can Selcon then have the same HUFA;s in it, be stored at room temperature, and not go rancid? The original dietary studies involved stabilized vitamin C. I'm still on the fence with that one.

jmaneyapanda,
I applied for funding to run a controlled HLLE study in 2009 - hopefully it will get approved. However, since as you point out, this is likely a multi-variate problem, I'm just going to examine the correlation between HLLE and carbon fines.

Jay

 

[IchthyoloChris]

Jay,
Thanks for the insight. Interesting point on Selcon /Selco. I tinkered with vitamin C in the '90s and never seemed to get dramatic results. Admittedly, though, I was not attempting to quantify / execute a study of statistical significance.

I remember in the '90s, HLLE was rampant in many public aquaria coral reef fish collections. Now, it seems like I see it far less frequently. Are you aware of any paradigm shift with regard to public aquarium husbandry that may have correlated with this observation?

In your experience, are there any parallels between the occurrence of this condition in Symphysodon spp. & in marine species? It's been a long-held believe that this condition in discus was due to intestinal parasites. On the flipside, this is another taxon that is extremely sensitive to water quality so your observations pertaining to tank-switching might apply.

jmaneypanda,
I agree with you that it is almost certainly not diet alone. As I mentioned prior, I think this is a multifaceted condition. While it is debatable as to whether or not the success I've observed with diet improvement was due to the treatment of a symptom as opposed to the source, I tend to recommend this course of action first. I figure at the very least it, it is a simple step that can produce results that will benefit the fish. If HLLE reoccurs, then the aquarist has eliminated one potential cause and perhaps has bought some time to figure out others.

 

[saltyguy51]

Actually Chris the mussels are fresh (so called) from Jewel and then into my freezer and then to the tank

 

[JHemdal]

Chris,

No relation to freshwater HLLE that I'm aware of. I can reverse that in discus and oscars with metronidazole in the food (which doesn't seem to work for marine fish). In FW fish, it seems to be caused by a protozoan related to Hexamita.
A few reasons I think that public aquariums have gotten HLLE under control: Avoiding suceptable species, using less carbon, more reliance on foam fractionators (which removes POC and carbon fines - hmmmm). Better overall water quality. I haven't noticed a marked improvement in diets...mysids and cyclop-eeze are only the really different foodstuffs from what was fed out in the 1980's (for the aquariums I'm familar with anyway).

Jay