Black Tang with Ich? battle scars? lesions?

[iFunnny]

Hi all,

Overnight my Black Tang has had this odd cluster of white spots on either side of this body. and ive also noticed tinier white spots on his fins. they do not look bumpy. and one of them is definitely a scar from a fight as it is an elongated line.

The tang has had HLLE for awhile now in another display, and during QT it worsened, but has since gotten better.

When introducing the tangs, the black beat the achilles within an inch of its life, but it did not get ich and got better.

My achilles is spotless at the moment, but i have no idea whats going on with the black tang. The only thing that was different from last night since i last saw it and this morning was seeding the tank with tigger and apex pods from reef nutrition.

One of my tangs, the sailfin does have a lympho cyst on its tail. Transmission maybe?

All are eating heavily at the moment.

any thoughts on what it is and what i should do, if anything?

 

[iFunnny]

Should also note that these fish were QT-ed at the LFS for 3 weeks with copper. they have been with me for 2 weeks, and have not seen anything else so far. Other things of note, its a barebottom tank, so definitely not sand, unless maybe rock dust but i doubt it, i have very strong flow.

I do have a UV sterilizer that was tuned for clarification but has since been tuned for sterilization.

I do have some of my own QT tanks at home, and it is entirely possible there was some cross contamination one way or the other invariably given my situation. That being said, QT-ed fish are not showing any signs of illness so far.

Also im surprised if it were Ich, that the black tang would get it first and not the achilles.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Need pictures taken in white light and water parameters. #fishmedic

 

[vetteguy53081]

Should also note that these fish were QT-ed at the LFS for 3 weeks with copper. they have been with me for 2 weeks, and have not seen anything else so far. Other things of note, its a barebottom tank, so definitely not sand, unless maybe rock dust but i doubt it, i have very strong flow.

I do have a UV sterilizer that was tuned for clarification but has since been tuned for sterilization.

I do have some of my own QT tanks at home, and it is entirely possible there was some cross contamination one way or the other invariably given my situation. That being said, QT-ed fish are not showing any signs of illness so far.

Also im surprised if it were Ich, that the black tang would get it first and not the achilles.

Look sad like bacterial tufts and may be due to water quality and diet
Any other occupants showing signs?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi all,

Overnight my Black Tang has had this odd cluster of white spots on either side of this body. and ive also noticed tinier white spots on his fins. they do not look bumpy. and one of them is definitely a scar from a fight as it is an elongated line.

The tang has had HLLE for awhile now in another display, and during QT it worsened, but has since gotten better.

When introducing the tangs, the black beat the achilles within an inch of its life, but it did not get ich and got better.

My achilles is spotless at the moment, but i have no idea whats going on with the black tang. The only thing that was different from last night since i last saw it and this morning was seeding the tank with tigger and apex pods from reef nutrition.

One of my tangs, the sailfin does have a lympho cyst on its tail. Transmission maybe?

All are eating heavily at the moment.

any thoughts on what it is and what i should do, if anything?

Black fish tend to show every little mark and scrape very clearly. With skin irritation, mucus is produced which also shows up really clearly on black fish. The fact that the spots are localized and not spread out randomly, points to a scrape or injury, not a parasite. Parasites don't really group like that. The rapid onset of the spots also leans towards a physical scrape.

Can you get pictures/video under white light?

Jay

 

[iFunnny]

Ammonia nitrite are at 0, nitrates at 10, i ran out of po4 satchels at the moment.

I sadly have only radion blues and this is as white as it gets.

I believe as you guys have speculated that its a scratch. because its on both sides of the fish, it looks like it may have wedged itself into a crevice and scraped itself.

However, the tail is what concerns me, they look really like whitespots and have grown in number since i last posted this. I suppose it is also possible it scratched its tail trying to get out of whatever crevice it might have gotten stuck in. It does like to chase the copperband through a narrow part of the rockscape so i wouldnt be surprised.

As none of the other fish have any signs of distress, I decided to remove the black tang for now. All fish including the black tang ate as much as they usually do, i even fed them abit more today.

Regarding their diet, they are on a diet of PE mysis frozen & flakes, hikari seaweed extreme, vitalis algae flakes, TDO as well as Reef Frenzy on alternate days to PE frozen mysis.

I also have a 80w deltec uv sterilizer installed at 1.5x tank volume for ich management in case.

I switched off all the lights and caught the black tang out under red light, and he is residing in a bucket with an airstone now. i spoke to my LFS, they told me to bring it in tomorrow for them to monitor the situation. I showed them the photo and video of the fish, and they too mentioned the sides look scraped, but the spots on the tail look highly suspicious. The black tang is still eating the tiny bit i drop into the bucket, and is otherwise fine.

Im at a bit of a loss on how to proceed from here. I suppose if over the next few days, spots appear on my other tangs, the achilles being the canary in that mine, ich is undeniably in the tank. If nothing is spotted, and the Black Tang's marks still remain past 2-4 days, we can assume it probably isnt ich? But they heal rather fast too, if they were scars, so apart from subjecting it to copper again, im not sure how to be certain it isnt ich or velvet.

Rather disheartening given how conscientious ive tried to be, anxiety going through the roof lol

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Ammonia nitrite are at 0, nitrates at 10, i ran out of po4 satchels at the moment.

I sadly have only radion blues and this is as white as it gets.

I believe as you guys have speculated that its a scratch. because its on both sides of the fish, it looks like it may have wedged itself into a crevice and scraped itself.

However, the tail is what concerns me, they look really like whitespots and have grown in number since i last posted this. I suppose it is also possible it scratched its tail trying to get out of whatever crevice it might have gotten stuck in. It does like to chase the copperband through a narrow part of the rockscape so i wouldnt be surprised.

As none of the other fish have any signs of distress, I decided to remove the black tang for now. All fish including the black tang ate as much as they usually do, i even fed them abit more today.

Regarding their diet, they are on a diet of PE mysis frozen & flakes, hikari seaweed extreme, vitalis algae flakes, TDO as well as Reef Frenzy on alternate days to PE frozen mysis.

I also have a 80w deltec uv sterilizer installed at 1.5x tank volume for ich management in case.

I switched off all the lights and caught the black tang out under red light, and he is residing in a bucket with an airstone now. i spoke to my LFS, they told me to bring it in tomorrow for them to monitor the situation. I showed them the photo and video of the fish, and they too mentioned the sides look scraped, but the spots on the tail look highly suspicious. The black tang is still eating the tiny bit i drop into the bucket, and is otherwise fine.

Im at a bit of a loss on how to proceed from here. I suppose if over the next few days, spots appear on my other tangs, the achilles being the canary in that mine, ich is undeniably in the tank. If nothing is spotted, and the Black Tang's marks still remain past 2-4 days, we can assume it probably isnt ich? But they heal rather fast too, if they were scars, so apart from subjecting it to copper again, im not sure how to be certain it isnt ich or velvet.

Rather disheartening given how conscientious ive tried to be, anxiety going through the roof lol

Well, the spots seem too large and diffuse to be ich, but that might be a function of the photograph's focus. In any event, I guess I didn't see the benefit in moving the tang out - if it does have a contagious disease, that is still in the tank and would still need to be dealt with....and tangs don't like being moved or put into smaller tanks.

Jay

 

[iFunnny]

Fair enough. Thanks for your help! Hopefully its nothing serious

 

[helmsreef]

It also shows some visible signs of the start of HLLE on its head. It may come down to water quality.

 

[iFunnny]

It also shows some visible signs of the start of HLLE on its head. It may come down to water quality.

All the tangs exited copper treatment with pretty bad HLLE. the purple and sailfin have since fully recovered. Only the black tang remains scarred. so i dont think that might be the case. but ill definitely recheck my params

 

[iFunnny]

Update: The black tang no longer has anything on it at the LSF, but the achilles soon began showing similar signs. However, i also noticed the Sailfin was bullyiing the AT to the point of it hugging the sides of the tank once the black tang was gone, after removing the sailfin to the sump, the AT behavior has gone back to normal with some tiffs with the PT, but its very much the aggressor now. PT is unscathed in all this.

These similar scrapes have come up again. And im wondering if it was the sailfin that was beating up everyone and swapped targets from the black to the AT or if its something more nefarious. These tangs were all added in at the same time.

This is as clear as a shot as I could get. Everyone is eating lots and otherwise fine. So im hesitant to intervene any further if the experts here believe this is something that will heal on its own.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Could be from aggression, but it does seem really diffuse.
Jay