HLLE (Head & Lateral Line Erosion)

[Mr Mumblez]

Can anyone tell from my pics if this is what is happening to my yellow eye kole?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Can anyone tell from my pics if this is what is happening to my yellow eye kole?

Its hole-In-The-Head Disease, also known as Head and Lateral Line Erosion (HLLE( common in tangs and other saltwater fish. As the name states, this disease affects the lateral line organ and skin covering the head and face of the fish. There is no specific cause but generally attributed to poor diet, use of carbon heavily, water conditions and even stress. My suspicion here is diet.
Feed at minimum:

Spiriulina brine shrimp
LRS herbivore diet
Nori seaweed basted with garlic extract
Mysis shrimp
small plankton
Formula 2 Frozen and flakes

Add garlic to food 2-3x per week and selcon vitamin to food 2X per week on other days

 

[Mr Mumblez]

I just ordered selcon, and what you said about carbon? I actually started using a BRS mini reactor with rox.8 around 2 weeks ago. I put a gate valve on the return to slow it down to about the same speed as a fridge will fill a glass of water. I’ll stop that now.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I just ordered selcon, and what you said about carbon? I actually started using a BRS mini reactor with rox.8 around 2 weeks ago. I put a gate valve on the return to slow it down to about the same speed as a fridge will fill a glass of water. I’ll stop that now.

While carbon reactors have been implicated in contributing to the breakdown of the carbon, the ROX product doesn't seem to be an issue like soft carbon is....

Jay

 

[Mr Mumblez]

Geez your homing in on the things I’ve done before I’ve told you! Wow I found out about the softer carbon breaking up and clouding the water in display the hard way and is why I’m now using the rox. The normal kind rolled around in there that first night and the next morning I stopped it and replaced socks and floss a few times. It broke carbon down to fines. Would that have caused this for my tang?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Geez your homing in on the things I’ve done before I’ve told you! Wow I found out about the softer carbon breaking up and clouding the water in display the hard way and is why I’m now using the rox. The normal kind rolled around in there that first night and the next morning I stopped it and replaced socks and floss a few times. It broke carbon down to fines. Would that have caused this for my tang?

Yes - I didn't realize that you used soft carbon before the ROX, that is the smoking gun here I'm afraid.

jay

 

[Mr Mumblez]

Ugh. I thought I read enough about using it. I was searching good things about clearer water, better light penetration, even better filtration. Should have searched things that can go bad, cons, and such. Lesson learned. Jay that article was amazing on medicated foods and methods of treating. I’m going to go get a 20 gallon set up with a canister tomorrow and get a qt tank set up. There’s really no way of avoiding it. All kinds of things can be on these critters. Thank you all so much for being here for all of us.

 

[Trueruby]

Hi I see lots of posts about no one seeing an issue with HLLE that they can contribute to running Rox 0.8. I’ve noticed recently that it appears my tang does have HLLE. I’ve had him for nearly two years. I’ve never used any carbon other than Rox 0.8 and been running that for a year. I did have an ich outbreak and he did go into QT with copper, but that was also several months ago. I just noticed the HLLE within the last few days. Two possible points of stress are:
Added a bristletooth tang but never see any issues between him and the tang
Had a Calcium spike occur in Jan, (long story) and have managed it down to the 450 its now at. During that time, there was some ups and downs in Alk, never more than 1 dkh in 24 hours as I’ve been testing every other day to daily since that spike.


Always feeding him nori daily, as well as food soaked in selcon. Current parameters are:
CA 450
ALK 9.3 (Red Sea) or 10.1 via (Hanna) trying to figure this one out
Mg 1360
Salinity 1.025
Nitrate. 4ppm
Po4. 0.02

Have not tested for a grounding issue, need to figure out how. Otherwise any thoughts?

Hi,
I have more or less the same thing. Have you cured any better?

 

[Trueruby]

The fish in that picture lived a long time, but the fins never grew back.

Jay

Hello Jay,
I just got a yellow tang from a reefer. He said had it over a year. However, after I took him I realized he has HLL. Can you take a look to pictures how bad is it? Any idea will it recover if I feed it well? Non of my fishes did not have this sicknes ever.

 

[Kalinina]

This is anecdotal, however I have noticed since adding ozone that my yellow tang’s HLLE is healing. I’ll check my pics to see if I can find proof and post pics. I don’t use carbon and none of my other tangs/angels have it, just this one particular yellow tang.

Has anyone else noticed this as well when using ozone?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

This is anecdotal, however I have noticed since adding ozone that my yellow tang’s HLLE is healing. I’ll check my pics to see if I can find proof and post pics. I don’t use carbon and none of my other tangs/angels have it, just this one particular yellow tang.

Has anyone else noticed this as well when using ozone?

Actually, in the survey I did a number of years ago, there were a few submissions that anecdotally implicated ozone as causing HLLE. I discounted those because so many of the survey respondents were public aquariums using ozone that causation wasn’t a sure thing.

Testing for the causes of HLLE is tough due to lack of controls. The two carbon studies are the only controlled studies to date. Testing ways to mitigate it is even more difficult because at a point, the scars are permanent, so a “cure” won’t resolve the issue.

Jay

 

[Trueruby]

Just a quick update with my yellow; HLLE seems healed a bit in a year but not completely.