HLLE or something else on Hippo

4ddiction · Mar 30, 2025

Hey needed some help identifying what’s going on with my hippo tang. Couple days ago I saw this happening on the head. Not sure if it’s HLLE or if it’s flukes that caused it to scratch itself.

Eating fine like the pig she is. She eats mainly a frozen meadly of foods. Doesn’t really want to eat nori. Never picked up a taste for it. Also feed avast freeze dried three times a day in a plank auto feeder

Nitrate: 12.5
Phosphate: 0.06
Ph: 8.3
Alk: 7.6
Cal: 430
Mg: 1440
Temp: 78

I turned off my carbon reactor for now. Still running my UV. She’s been being cleaned by two shrimp I picked up Friday.

Today I purchased some Hikari omnivore pellets to try to get her to eat some veggies.

Been soaking frozen foods with selcon and garlic

vetteguy53081 · Mar 30, 2025

4ddiction said:
Hey needed some help identifying what’s going on with my hippo tang. Couple days ago I saw this happening on the head. Not sure if it’s HLLE or if it’s flukes that caused it to scratch itself.

Eating fine like the pig she is. She eats mainly a frozen meadly of foods. Doesn’t really want to eat nori. Never picked up a taste for it. Also feed avast freeze dried three times a day in a plank auto feeder

Nitrate: 12.5
Phosphate: 0.06
Ph: 8.3
Alk: 7.6
Cal: 430
Mg: 1440
Temp: 78

I turned off my carbon reactor for now. Still running my UV. She’s been being cleaned by two shrimp I picked up Friday.

Today I purchased some Hikari omnivore pellets to try to get her to eat some veggies.

Been soaking frozen foods with selcon and garlic

This is severe Hlle and while you wont get full restoration of skin, you can at least control it. HLLE causes pits and flesh missing mainly in tangs, angels and some rabbitfish. It is often caused by poor water quality, high use of carbon, poor water quality (elevated nitrate and ammonia) and inadequate/poor diet. It is not life threating in any way but offers secondary infection in some cases.
Maintaining GOOD water quality and diet are often the fixes and with severe cases, some healing.
Some foods to feed tang are :
LRS herbivore diet
Formula 2 flake and frozen
TDO Pellets
small plankton
Hikari Marine cuisine
Ocean nutrition veggie diet
spirulina brine shrimp
mysis shrimp
Prime reef
Nori seaweed basted with garlic extract

Add selcon vitamins to foods occasionally

Ks4726 · Mar 30, 2025

Hlle. Remove carbon and feed herbivore food with vitamins. Doubt you'll reverse that.

Jay Hemdal · Mar 30, 2025

The primary lesion is HLLE. The rapid growth is unusual and may indicate a secondary infection - either bacteria or maybe flukes. Have you see the fish scratching?

4ddiction · Mar 30, 2025

I recently changed my reactor feed pump and I got a feeling the flow in my carbon reactor may have been too high and created fine particles. That’s what i suspect did this. Water quality has been stable, all other fish, anemone, LPS and SPE seem to be doing well. I’ve turned off the carbon and performed a large water change.

I’ll keep an eye out on her and try to get her to eat more veggies.

Any tips on getting a tang to like to eat nori? She eats the green film algae when i scrape the glass just not nori on clips. I’ve been wrapping the frozen medley cubes with nori since she’s the main one that pecks at my feeding clip.

Ks4726 · Mar 30, 2025

Use an innovation marine clip or any grid clip and mix the slime algae with the nori in the clip if possible. Or break up nori in the frozen food. I'd stop with the carbon for awhile and see if it improves. That damage doesn't happen overnight.

4ddiction · Mar 30, 2025

Should I do a FW dip to check for flukes or just leave her be to not stress her out more.

MnFish1 · Mar 30, 2025

1. I would observe - and if the fish has symptoms of flukes, consider a FW dip, realizing that it will not show all flukes.
2. The problem is usually a low grade carbon - i.e. you can still use carbon - just use a high grade carbon.

Good luck with your tank!!

Jay Hemdal · Mar 30, 2025

4ddiction said:
I recently changed my reactor feed pump and I got a feeling the flow in my carbon reactor may have been too high and created fine particles. That’s what i suspect did this. Water quality has been stable, all other fish, anemone, LPS and SPE seem to be doing well. I’ve turned off the carbon and performed a large water change.

I’ll keep an eye out on her and try to get her to eat more veggies.

Any tips on getting a tang to like to eat nori? She eats the green film algae when i scrape the glass just not nori on clips. I’ve been wrapping the frozen medley cubes with nori since she’s the main one that pecks at my feeding clip.

If it was carbon caused, changing the diet won’t reverse it. Moving the fish to a new tank might help. The problem is that if it was carbon, the dust is still in your tank and will continue harming the fish.