Whats wrong with my purple tang

[hotwire73]

Ok, I have no clue what is up with my purple tang. I have tried broccoli, algae, brine, etc as his diet and he has even grown about twice the size he was 2 years ago. Problem is he has always had that mark down his side and down his face that doesnt look right, what is causing this. Ive had several purple tangs over my 12 years or so of doing this and none have ever look this unhealthy.http://reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=259&pictureid=28034

[smoyer]

lateral line disease

[jnc914]

Definitely Lateral line. Usually caused by a combo of poor water quality, stress, and improper diet. Good thing is you can nurse it back by improving the above mentioned issues. Try dosing Selcon or Vitachem and feed food with higher protein like Mysis instead of brine shrimp. Out of curiosity, is he the only Tang in your set up?

[hotwire73]

No, I have an achilles, clown, powder blue, powder brown, and yellow mimic tangs as well, nothing on them and Ive had all of them at least 1.5- 4 years with the exception of the clown tang I got 5 months ago. Like I said he is the only only one like that and has been for almost a year and a half at least. Water quality is exceptional, he actually came in like this when I ordered him. Any other ideas or thoughts?

[Sk8r]

Selcon or something that starts with Zoo [can't remember] Diet and available minerals may have something to do with it. If he came to you this way, this fish may have been traded off by someone, rather than caught in the wild like this, and he's got a condition that's somewhat hard to deal with. The dietary supplements are about the best you can do.

This from Wiki: there is some notion also that continual use of carbon in a tank can lead to this.
"There is much debate as to the cause of HLLE. Very little scientific research has been done on the topic, and most information available is anecdotal.

Removing carbon from the filter is a commonly suggested remedy for the disease. It is suggested that the carbon may either a.) add fine carbon particles to the water that irritate the skin, b.) leach phosphates and other potentially harmful chemicals into the water, or c.) remove minerals that are important to the health of the fish. Though there have been many reports of affected fish recovering after carbon has been removed, no studies have substantiated these theories, and many aquariums use carbon while still having healthy fish.

Many people believe that parasites of the genus Hexamita, a flagellated protozoan, is to blame. HLLE and Hexamita infections are often seen in the same specimens.[3] However, HLLE can be found in many fish who do not have a Hexamita infection, suggesting that a Hexamita infection may cause stress or interfere with the absorption of vitamins and minerals causing malnutrition, which may be the actual cause of the disease. Hexamita may also be a secondary infection common in fish already weakened by HLLE.

Individual studies have shown that improvement in nutrition will help symptoms most effectively. Key vitamins in preventing or curing HLLE seem to be Vitamins A, C, and D. Adding these vitamins to the diet of affected fish usually leads to improvement, however, deficiencies in any of these vitamins do not always lead to HLLE, so nutrition is also questionable as a cause.

It has also been suggested that HLLE is an autoimmune disorder that is triggered by stress.[4] The disease does not appear to occur to fish in the wild, only those in captivity, supporting the idea that stress and unnatural living conditions are to blame. Anything that reduces stress appears to help in the prevention and recovery from this disease."

BTW, get a photobucket account and use that to post photos: it will resize them to fit properly on the page.

[smoyer]

purple tangs seem to be more sensitive then some of the other tangs

[geaux xman]

theres a couple of PT at my LFS and one has its pretty bad, one has it mild.

[hotwire73]

skr8, havent used carbon in over a year.

[hotwire73]

Been supplementing with selcon as well, but usually just drop a few drops on the brine shrimp before adding it to tank. Now I only usually add that like once a week, guess I can go to everyday, do I need to just add to water, seems thats more for inverts.
Is vitachem any better than the selcon I got, and does anyone know what the one gentleman spoke of in relations to zoo something for a supplement?

[hotwire73]

Up to daily 1 ml selcon, and couldnt figure out what the other guy was talking about on the zoo product, went to marinedepot.com and couldnt find anything. So I went to the local bs dealer and found some kent marine Zoe and Im mixing around 3/4 teasp. with the 1 ml selcon on the frozen brine shrimp allowing an hour for it to absorb. Not sure if its relevant but this is for 1.6 ounces of brine shrimp. I forgot to add I have a kole tang as well, then a pearlscale, and copperband butterfly is the purpose for this much food. Anyway if any objections to the Zoe product or if anyone knows of a supplier for a better supplement please advise; ty. If any concern for food, waste ratios I have never seen the water in over the last 1.5 years ever show more than 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and usually 10-20 ppm nitrate.

[SushiGirl]

As Jnc said, try using mysis instead of brine. Brine isn't providing any nutrition.

[hotwire73]

Didnt know there was that much difference between mysis and brine besides size, usually feed mysis to fish like 3 inch or smaller, but all of mine are at least 5-7.5 inches now and they didnt seem to attracted and eat as well on mysis after a size was reached. Anyone know the actual difference in compostion off the top of there head? Ill make sure to call my local supplier and see if they can get the larger flat packs of mysis.

[RegalAngel]

skr8, havent used carbon in over a year.


Did the tang develop the HLLE while using carbon? Bingo!

[hotwire73]

BINGO lol, no reread I got him in with the line on him when I ordered him. Now I look back I havent used carbon in over 2.5 years, I took the remaining return filter systems off about a year or so ago and just use the LR and skimmer. Thing is if carbon was doing this to him before I got him, why would he still be having it now year and a half later with no carbon; BINGO. Ah I like the pic of your regal, just got one in last week, but Im donating him to a friend since Im buying back my 8 inch Emperor.

[hotwire73]

I jsut noticed this pic in my public profile info that I uploaded around 10/19/2009, this is what he looked like back then, you can see the line on him still. System at that time did not have carbon. Just seems that line lightens up some then gets worse, and his color goes from really really light purple (lavendar) to almost now like its pitch black. Usually powder blues are the more ick prown stress fish, but mine has never had any problems. The achilles seems to have stress issues you have to stay on top of, if anyone has alot of experience with these please IM me. Below is a pic thats been on my profile here since 09'.http://reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=259&pictureid=1430

[hotwire73]

Doesnt seem like anything new is coming, I would like to thank sk8r for that carbon idea, I have friends that I know still use alot of carbon in larger systems. Thank you smoyer and jnc914 for the help in identifying this. Thank you sushigirl and jnc for the mysis protein info., just from past experience they just dont like the smaller mysis for some reason; but Im going to try to force them to it. As stated the last pic posted is a pic of what he looked like the day I received him. I got this specimen directly from a major supplier to the east coast. Knowing this gave me the idea he has a weakened immune system or some disease. The actual supplier receives them and exports them usually within a week. If any ideas on the Zoo product mentioned IM me please. Thank you all again.

[Ben_n_Em]

Glad i ran across this. I've had a purple in QT for 3 weeks and im starting to see this line in his face under his eyes. I still had carbon in the filter to clean up from a copper treatment i did a while back on another fish. I pulled the carbon and will be interested to see if this clears up the line on the fish.

[kingfisherflesh]

Depending how long he has had this it might be permanent/take forever to recover.

My purple tang got some in QT, but it was quickly resolved once into DT...selecon is soaked into three different kinds of nori every other day in my DT, and I think that selecon is a good product if you want to reverse the HLLE. Water and dietary quality are the two big ones...but that has already been said.

Not sure if it played a role, but I also was soaking with vitachem at the same time (still use a mix of the two)