white spot on blue regal tang

[brandoniscool]

hello RC,

My new students come in next week and a few have been visiting the classroom after hours. My 180 in my classroom has been doing great all summer and I've been spending my down time working in front of it. I recently added 7 yellow tangs and everyone is getting along.

I had a few kids monkeying around in the tank yesterday and did a 20% water change. This morning I came to find that my blue regal tang has a white spot on its ventral fin. Positive it wasn't there yesterday. The white spot can be seen from both sides but one side is large and features a raised dark dot in the center as can be seen from these kinda bad pictures:

It looks like a parasite and I'm guess its manifestation is caused by some stress from having kid hands in the tank and the water change. Catching this fish would be very difficult and would involve moving around a lot of rock and coral. I'm planning on keeping him in and being careful about the health of my system. I will update this post with water perimeters in the morning.

What does reef central think?

 

[Newsmyrna80]

Hard to tell from the pics but it could be an isopod. They usually be removed with tweezers. Another pic might render a better diagnosis.

 

[brandoniscool]

I was so concerned about my tang that I dreamed about it all last night. I got into my classroom this morning to find that the spot, visible in the pictures above is gone! This would support the isopod theory, that it was something external that could simply drop off. Any ideas what my next steps should be?

 

[BigBlueTang]

Did you qt the tangs? If not, you probably have ich....
Set up a couple of pretty big qt's if you don't already for the 8 tangs. Treat with ttm(personal preference)

 

[Deinonych]

I was so concerned about my tang that I dreamed about it all last night. I got into my classroom this morning to find that the spot, visible in the pictures above is gone! This would support the isopod theory, that it was something external that could simply drop off. Any ideas what my next steps should be?

I would just keep an eye on the blue tang at this point. If the spot was an isopod, it may or may not return. No sense tearing apart the tank trying to find it.

 

[Newsmyrna80]

^agree with Chris