White Tail Bristletooth Tang facial abrasions or ??

[KarenLR75]

Pics are attached. have 112 gallon tank, mixed reef. We noticed 2 weeks ago that our tang keeps getting abrasions on the front of his face/nose. At first we thought it might be a disease, etc. but so far within a few days the abrasions heal up and he's back to normal.

He is the most aggressive addition we made and we introduced a smaller blue throat trigger at the same time. We've had issues off and on after they had been together for weeks, the tang decided he wants the cave where the trigger hooks himself into the back of it at night or when there had been some occasional food aggression between the 2.

They had a couple of fights early on with the trigger being EXTREMELY patient particularly when he was bitten. Finally he bit back. Things seemed to calm down after the trigger had declared he had 'enough'. The trigger is about 2 inches smaller than the tang.

We added an additional prize looking hiding hole/cave hoping to lure either the tang or the trigger into claiming it for their own. It was higher up on the rock work though so I'm not sure if they are both wanting 'floor level' hiding places as opposed to a 'penthouse' hiding place but although the tang swims through it, he didn't claim it.

We did talk to some local LFS and they thought what our tang had was just abrasions from pecking/diving through the rocks and while they DO heal, they keep happening. I don't know if at night is he getting into it with the trigger in the dark and trying to pry him out of his hole but the trigger shows absolutely NO signs of a scuffle at all so I'm stumped.

Is what you see below just abrasions and we need to find any sharp edges and do something about them (this did NOT happen the first few months we had him though)? Or is it something more serious - disease, parasites...but why would they heal so quickly over and over?

Any help is really appreciated. Sorry pics aren't better, he swims so fast, especially if he sees us trying to take a picture.

 

[Dmorty217]

Hard to tell from the pictures but it sort of looks self inflicted, if not it’s HLLE and a varied enriched diet and good water quality are the cure

 

[Indymann99]

+1 looks like he scraped his nose on the rocks. My Blue Hippo has all sorts of scrapes from sleeping in the rocks.

 

[WVfishguy]

+1 looks like he scraped his nose on the rocks. My Blue Hippo has all sorts of scrapes from sleeping in the rocks.

Hepatus tangs are very susceptible to HLLE. I've found it to be quite rare for any fish to damage themselves around natural objects like rock work. If the tang's "scrapes" are located on the head, it's probable it has HLLE.

It can be problematic to supply Paranthurus hepatis all the nutrition they require. The ones I've kept eat very well, but can still become ill. I believe they need to eat certain inverts like sponges or corals.

To the OP: It's certainly more likely your trigger is the cause of this wound than getting cut by rock work. It does not look like HLLE to me.

They may simply need to get used to each other.