Purple Tang Tail Issue

[bryanracing95]

Here is what is going on. My purple tang that I have had for about 3 years is a daredevil and likes to steal food from my RBTA and torch corals, this leads him to get stung from time to time which he has never had issues with besides the occasional white spot where his color pigment on his skin turns white for a few minutes-hours. Well I do believe he got stung on his tail about a month ago and since then tissue recession has begun on his tail. It started off as a small round notch of his tail missing and has very slowly progressed inward in a circular fashion. This is new to me as any case of fin rot that I have seen leaves the fin edges tattered, this is very smooth and in a circular pattern. He is the king of my 150g aquarium and is the largest and most dominant fish so I know he is not getting picked on as he is usually the bully. I am thinking that he possibly picked up a secondary infection of some sort and I am baffled as if it is a fungal or bacterial infection. Today I put him in QT and medicating both his food and the water with Seachem Kanaplex to see if that has any effect on the tissue recession. The tang is still eating great and is very energetic. I feed a variety of foods, pellets soaked in zoecon and zoe, mysis, rods food, algae sheets.

The edge of the lesion on his tail does have some yellow masses, I am unsure if this is possibly fungus or bacterial growth or neither and possibly healing?

Tank parameters are great, undetectable nitrates, phosphates, 1.025 salinity. PH Great, KH great and no other fish are affected or showing any signs of fin issues and great appetites.

Looking for some help or guidance for this issue, Ive been in the hobby for over 10 years and have not had a issue like this in my stable aquarium systems.

 

[CoralsAddiction]

How long has it been like this?

 

[bryanracing95]

About a month like I stated it's very slow progression. I also have freshwater dipped and nothing fell off to the naked eye.

 

[jay13]

while the chunk missing is quite obvious it appears to not be infected per that pic. usually "fin rot" or any type of bacterial infection leaves the fins looking pretty bad (clear, ragged etc..). finish the antibiotic treatment and give it time to heal back. that is a lot of fin to replace, it will take time.

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Agree with post above. Damage doesn't look as bad and should heal on its own

 

[bryanracing95]

It's not healing though the fin loss is slowly progressing. I thought the same thing and it has progressed from the size of a pencil eraser to about the size of a marble.

 

[jay13]

let the antibiotics have a chance. kanamyacin is more gram negative, try a gram positive antibiotic at the same time such as erythromyacin.

 

[bryanracing95]

I'll give it a shot, have not really had to use many antibiotics as I have always had healthy stock

 

[jay13]

erythromyacin is a pretty good drug. used it on my clown tang when he ripped his jaw up and it got infected. he looked better in three days, granted it must have been the correct med for whatever bacteria was growing.

 

[bryanracing95]

Looks as his tail is already showing signs if healing. I am dosing both the kanaplex and erythromycin . About 3 days into treatment