What is on my Emperor?

[percula99]

I have included two short videos below for you to look at. My Emperor eats like a pig as you can see by his fat belly. He is not shy or hiding or scatching. He seems in perfect health except for the blotching on his side. I recognize ich as I have battled that before (haven't we all) and that is not ich. He has small dull looking blotches on his skin plus one large blotch on one side. The blotching is quite hard to see on these videos. It is there today, and gone tomorrow, and then back the next day. These two videos were shot minutes apart and you can see the blotch on the second video, but not on the first. All my water parameters are bang on.

Amonia - 0
Nitite - 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate - 0
Calcium - 400
Ph - 8.2
Kh - 10
Sp. Gr. 1.026
Temp - 78.0F

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[percula99]

The videoas are not great and I am a horrible photographer , but these may help a little. Notice how the big blotch is amlost gone already, and these were taken 20 minutes after the videos.

 

[b0bab0ey]

Stress spot perhaps? He looked a little irritated in the second video with some of the other fish. My PB Tang gets spots like that (albeit smaller) from time to time. There one day, gone the next. I think it's from rubbing up against my Frogspawn or getting too close to a GBTA.

 

[percula99]

That darting motion you see at the end of the second video is not typical of his behavior. He is usually very happy in the tank but occasionally I have seen him chase the Flame and/or the Blue Damsel. I don't think he is stressed out by them though. It could be he is getting too close to some corals. My Ocellaris did have black spots that came from them acclimating to the leather umbrella they host in.

 

[sandwi54]

these white blotches are typical stress spots on most angelfish. they only appear when the fish is stressed enough. given your reef-standard water quality, that's probably not the issue. i also see a majestic angel in the tank. could it be possible that there's aggression between the two? though, majestic is usually the one getting bullied, especially when it's an emperor as the mate.

 

[percula99]

Stress seems to be the common reason I am seeing here, but I can't really see any stress in the tank at all except the occasional chase of the Blue Damsel. The Majestic is a wimp and hides a lot. If one of my Angels would be stressed, it would be the Majestic. The Emperor is really a happy fish. He is always out and you can see in the video, when I come near the tank he comes right up to the glass to see me. "It's feeding time!" :fish1:

 

[sandwi54]

Stress seems to be the common reason I am seeing here, but I can't really see any stress in the tank at all except the occasional chase of the Blue Damsel. The Majestic is a wimp and hides a lot. If one of my Angels would be stressed, it would be the Majestic. The Emperor is really a happy fish. He is always out and you can see in the video, when I come near the tank he comes right up to the glass to see me. "It's feeding time!" :fish1:

it's definitely stress spots. i've kept three emperor angels before and also various angelfish including two majestics) and that's their typical spots/colorations when they're stressed. majestic is almost always the whimp, always the first one to run away and hide.

how long have you had the fish and when did the stress spots first appear? how big is the fish? your fish seems to be at least 4-5" and has a fully rounded dorsal fin, which means it's either from the red sea or indian ocean, and not the indo-pacific version which genenrally has a filament (which would have been developed by now given the size of the angel). this rules out the possibility of cyanide poisoning.

when the blue damsel chases the emperor, what's the degree of the aggression? is it a prolonged chase around the tank or more like "get out of my way?" emperor angels are one of the more delicate angels and typically displays symptoms first when stress happens, so we'll have to nail this down.

 

[sandwi54]

i just noticed one thing. you have cleaner shrimps in the tank. when angels get close to a cleaner shrimp to get cleaned, it almost always displays stress spots (though they are not stressed). this happens to some of the species of tangs as well. this is probably not the cause of the stress spots but i'm just throwing out every idea i can think of.

i also see a small tear on his dorsal fin. could a fish be harrassing him?

 

[percula99]

If this is stress I simply cannot tell you what the stress is from. The Emperor chases the Blue Damsel, not the other way around, and it is just a "Get out of my way" type of chase. It is not prolonged. The Emperor is between 4-5 inches as you mentioned and the Regal is slightly bigger than that. I have had him since February or so and the spots only showed up four weeks ago. It has never progressed past spots. He also never goes near the cleaner shrimps.

 

[sandwi54]

mmm... i'm at a loss then. space wise it looks ok for now, even though when it grows another 2-3" it may feel a little cramped in a densed rockwork like yours.

are you sure the emperor is not harassed by anyone? the tear on his dorsal fin makes me a little suspicious.

also, what do you feed the emperor? i'm leaning towards diet problems now.

 

[percula99]

I do spend time in front of the tank often and there is no aggression towards the Emperor. Now diet could be a problem. He is fat and eats plenty...of nori only. He will also eat Spirulina flake, but nothing else. I soak my frozen food in selcon or garlic but that does not entice him at all. When I soak the nori in selcon or garlic none of the fish go near it I have been concerned about the fact he won't eat anything else. By now he should have learned that the stuff I put in the tank every day is food, but he won't touch it. If it weren't for the nori he would have starved by now.

 

[jjk_reef00]

Try NLS pellets. I've never had an angel that wouldn't eventually eat them.

 

[sandwi54]

there's the problem then. nori does not have much nutritional value and should not be the only food given. flakes are also not a good diet either. roughly 70% of large angelfish's natural diet is sponge and tunicates, and to keep one successfully you must feed food that contains sponge. ocean nutrition makes a frozen food called angel formula which contains sponges, and that should be the main food for the emperor. NLS pellets is also a must for all your fish too as it's nutritionally complete. also supplement with mysis shrimps, blood worms, squid, krills, etc.

you have to find ways to train the emperor to eat the above foods, otherwise it'll die over time due to malnutrition, especially lack of sponge. training is most easily done in a quarantine tank instead of display. i'm surprised that being only 4-5" it should've been a problem to train him to eat prepared foods, but i guess there are always exceptions. in any case, train him to eat those foods. if you don't know how, google on the web, as people have come up with various methods to trick fish into eating any food.

 

[percula99]

I have tried feeding pellets before, and quite frankly, none of my fish will eat it. They all just watch it sink to the bottom and go about swimming around the tank. They don't graze for it later. As fo supplementing with mysis shrimps, blood worms, squid, krills, etc, I already feed all that and the Emperor has not touched any of it. I will try to get some Angel food although I have in the past and the LFS I tried at don't carry it. I do agree nori is not enough and that has been a concern of mine. At least I know my Majestic and Flame would eat Angel food if I find some.

 

[sandwi54]

I have tried feeding pellets before, and quite frankly, none of my fish will eat it. They all just watch it sink to the bottom and go about swimming around the tank. They don't graze for it later. As fo supplementing with mysis shrimps, blood worms, squid, krills, etc, I already feed all that and the Emperor has not touched any of it. I will try to get some Angel food although I have in the past and the LFS I tried at don't carry it. I do agree nori is not enough and that has been a concern of mine. At least I know my Majestic and Flame would eat Angel food if I find some.

Sounds good. Just to let you know. It took almost two months to train my male naso tang (8" long adult) to eat pellets and frozen cubes. There are many tricks you can try. One of them is to soak the food he eats in garlic continuously so he associates garlic with acceptable food, and then do the same with the food you want him to eat (NLS pellets, angel formula, etc). Keep feeding him this way and eventually he should open up. You can also mix the food together and feed all of the food to them at once. I have also heard of people rolling up nori and stuffing pellets in it to make fish think that pellets are part of nori and can be eaten too. I never needed to go to that extent but you can consider that. Just remember that it can take quite a while to train so don't give up!