yellow tang red spots - infection

[lhscouchmonster]

I have had my yellow tang for a month or two. He has put on some nice weight and besides fighting his reflection, he has seemed happy. i feed NLS with an auto feeder twice a day and feed nori every day. mysis for snacks once a week.

I bought a nice sized frogspawn that didnt take to the acclimation well and died over the course of a few days (think the flesh was damaged then irritated by flow). It started a cyano outbreak. I was hoping the coral would recover but it didnt so i pulled it out. I did a 20% water change, cleaned out the sump, vacummed the sand bed. skimmer pulled a lot of crap out of the water. parameters are all great and everything else in the tank is fine.

i was looking at the tang today and i see a few red blotches on his body where it connects to his fins. his one side fin looks irritated where it connects to his body. He is eating. He isnt darting around and seems more mellow today.

My QT is not set up. Chasing him with the net and putting him in QT is going to annoy him. Do these infections ever go away by themselves? Can i give it a few days to see if hes ok?

 

[HumbleFish]

Sometimes a fish's natural immune system can fight the infection off; sometimes antibiotics are required. There's really no way of knowing for sure - it's kind of a crap shoot. If you decide to wait it out, it would be helpful to boost the fish's natural immune system with vitamin supplements (i.e. Selcon, Zoecon, Vita-chem). If he starts looking worse, I would QT & treat with antibiotics ASAP.

 

[Rondelet]

Did you test the parameters before you cleaned up the system? Just wondering if your water quality was the root cause of the frogspawn dying, and which also led to the cyano outbreak. If so, then this may be what's upset your fish. If the water parameters now check out, I would hold off treating and just keep an eye on the fish.

 

[lhscouchmonster]

Did you test the parameters before you cleaned up the system? Just wondering if your water quality was the root cause of the frogspawn dying, and which also led to the cyano outbreak. If so, then this may be what's upset your fish. If the water parameters now check out, I would hold off treating and just keep an eye on the fish.

I have a bunch of other corals, mainly SPS and LPS and they have been fine. The frogspawn had a strange shape and I believe there were tears in the flesh because of the way the LFS had the coral in the tank. The flesh began to tear off.

I should have checked parameters but i didnt. I only checked alk, ca, mag, sg. I havent had a problem with ammonia, trites or trates since im so lightly stocked, dont feed heavy, and have a bunch of rock, filter sock, chaeto, fuge, skimmer, etc. I stopped testing. :facepalm:

I hope he recovers. Im still on the edge of pulling him out in order to treat in my QT. I am afraid it will spike ammonia in the QT since its not cycled. I have amquel but i work 10 hours a day and who the hell knows if the ammonia can spike that quick in a 20g tank.

 

[Rondelet]

Can you post a picture of the fish?

 

[lhscouchmonster]

I chose a pic where his side fin is flexed out so you can see the irritation on it. the circled areas are redder in person. the camera is making it look darker.

edit: the circles i drew arent showing. maybe there is a lag on photobucket or something

Can you post a picture of the fish?

 

[Rondelet]

Interesting. Something might be going on, but it's a tough call. I would agree with earlier post by supplementing the nutrition, but also keeping on top of the water quality and wait it out a little. Keep stress to a minimum and give the fish a chance to get on top of it. If more/obvious red spots appear than the fish may be suffering from bacterial septicemia. This is tricky since topically applied antibiotics (i.e. added to the water) are very hit or miss - mostly miss for these types of infections. Better to try a medicated feed approach, but that too can be difficult to undertake as it's hard to get the dose rate correct. It also assume the fish is eating, yet fish often go off feed when they have these types of infections.

 

[lhscouchmonster]

stayed om the small daily WCs and the tang is now back to normal. no meds. fed him lots of nori. thanks for the help.