spots on powder blue tang (pic)

[RonD]

My newish tang has been in QT for a while and has/had ich. now all I see is these brownish spots on its head area. I have done hypo and have just done a complete water change as the water it was in had... had it.. smelled bad and was just gross. I have since cleaned that and moved it to a smaller ten gal tank with a UV sterilizer to kill anything in the water and have air stone going full tilt as well. Question is what are these spot it has .. it looks like just skin missing but ??? ideas please. He eats like crazy and is extremely active.. your usual 'I'm a whacked out tang behavior'

Pic #2 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/RonDronD/IMG_0588.jpg

 

[kevin2000]

Unsure ... lots a bit like the beginning of HLLE.

Heres a link to a fish library which contains a three part article by Terry Bartelme discussion HLLE.
http://www.marineaquariumadvice.com/library.html

 

[Triggerfish]

good pic...
i think it could be any of the following.
1. possible skin de-pigmentation HITH/HLLE, like kevin mentiond
2. bare spots on skin from where parasite was attached
3. minor abrasions from when fish may have been scratching

if it spreads or doesn't heal quickly, i would think it is due to #1

 

[RonD]

Thanks for the responses.. after reading all of those pages/sections 1-3 on hlle .. it may stand to reason that adding the tang into the main display may be the best way to help it. Stress's from a few different mediums seem to have caused the symptoms. Water quality, food, light and stress from being in a small space all seem to cause the hlle. I have seen it go thru the ich faze a while back and got thru the just fine in only a couple of days of it showing. This is such a crap shoot being as I always seem to be totally paranoid of transferring anything to the rest of our system but I guess is boils down to a bit of leap of faith. Being as hlle is not contagious.. would placing it in the main tank be a good idea then?

 

[kevin2000]

I would not place this fish into the ST until you have completed the hypo treatment and are sure the fish is ich free - that often takes 4 weeks.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

Your original posts implied your QT water was pretty nasty ... not sure why since most people do frequent water changes in a QT to insure that ammonia levels stay at zero. It would be a good idea to try and maintain excellent water quality during the rest of the QT duration ... feeding nutritional food and keeping stress low may help the fish whether it has HLLE or otherwise.

 

[Triggerfish]

Re: spots on powder blue tang (pic)

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7512789#post7512789 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RonD
My newish tang has been in QT for a while and has/had ich.

how long has 'a while' actually been? and how long have the ich spots not been seen.
if you haven't seen anything under bright lighting in 6 weeks, the fish 'should' be good to go.

 

[RonD]

its has been in QT since April 24 and was hypo'ed almost immediately. I start to bring up the salinity last week and then noticed the spots. I have one of those seachem ammonia dials and it read fine.. I was / am doing regular water changes and scrubbing the tank. I stuck my nose in there the other day and went arghhh. My source of filtration is a 4 litre bucket with hole cut in the bottom and a large 100 micron filter bag placed inside.. then having a power head and a clear tube feeding it.. that was getting changed on a very regular basis..and a hang on smaller sponge filter as well and draws in its own water. in any case, the entire system has been changed out and every thing cleaned. I reduced the size of of the QT from a 33 down to a 10 gal as well. My reasoning for that was adding in the UV.. less water volume, less chance of anything sneaking thru. I have started hypo'ing again as well.

ICH wise... the bulk of that was over in a few days of being in the QT with Hypo in full effect... those lil suckers couldnt get out of the fish fast enough. It looked like heck for about two days and then back to normal. This latest thing has been there for a couple of weeks... I dosed the tank with maracyn two at that point.. that is when the water went sideways odor wise. with the color it adds to the tank it was hard to tell anything was a miss.. it was. Back to pure water now and watching and smelling it like a hawk.

 

[Triggerfish]

so it was treated with hypo roughly from 4/26-6/1 about 5 weeks.
it's recommended to treat for 4-6 weeks. if any spots are noticed during the treatment, it should be extended for an additional 4 weeks.
if you haven't seen any spots during treatment. i would recommend observing the fish for an additional 4 weeks to ensure treatment success., beyond that, there aint much ya can do.
gl.