Purple tang and possible flukes.

[Mark Waltermire]

I will begin by stating that I might just be over dramatic about this, and possibly worrying about something that doesn't exist. I want to do what is best for the fish and do not want to have anyone in harm. I picked up a purple tang on November 10th and he has been doing great ever since. There are a couple of things that I'm not sure if I should be worried about, or if I'm being overly proactive. My thought would be if he had anything it would be flukes, but I don't know how long the life cycle of flukes last.

Let me begin by stating that everything is going great with the tang, and there have been NO noticeable signs of a change in behavior or eating habits. He eats like a pig and receives mysis shrimp every day and flakes/purple seaweed most days that I don't forget.

1. The tangs eyes have never been perfectly clear. I wouldn't call them hazy and there are no white spots in the eye, but they just don't have the same clarity as other fish in the tang such as a melanarus wrasse. They are the same amount of not perfectly clear on both sides. This might just be his dark purple is making the eyes look less black. You can see in the picture. I will apologize for not having the best photos of his eyes. The fish doesn't like to swim in place very much.

2. There has been a white spot or possibly just a missing scale about 5mm above his right eye. I was not able to capture a photo of this on my iPhone, and will try to get a photo tomorrow once the lights are on with the DSLR. There is a melanarus wrasse in the tank and they never have fought, at least that I've seen, but they do show some light signs of aggression and it's possible that he nipped at the tang one night or something.

3. He does breath slightly heavily. I will also try to get this on video. I feel as though it might just be him swimming around all of the time, but it is possible that it could be something else. I've had sick fish before in other tanks and I know that he is not breathing anywhere near as heavy as what I've seen before.

Again he shows no signs of any changes and he has been in the tank for over 3 months now. Is this something that I should not worry about as it has already been so long of a period? I paid $125 for him and would just hate to see anything happen to him now. I just couldn't find good information on the life cycle of flukes.

I should also note parameters are as follows. I do not run Carbon/GFO/any media.
Temp - 76ºF (swings about .3ºF during the day)
Salinity - 1.025
Ph - 8.05 during the day and 7.90 at night (might be a bad ph probe as I have a CO2 scrubber)
Ammonia - 0.00
Nitrite - 0.00
Nitrate - 0.00 (don't know why this stays so low [tested with salifert and API])
Phosphate - 0.00-0.03
Alkalinity - 8-8.5
Calcium - 450ppm
Magnesium - 1500ppm (tested with NYOS and Red Sea)
Potassium - 420ppm
Iodine - 0.06
Iron - 0.15ppm

 

[melypr1985]

He actually looks really good in the pictures. I'll say that if he has flukes, then the clowns do too. If you can catch one of those (and I say a clown simply because they should be much easier to catch than the tang) and do a 5 minute freshwater dip on it, then we can confirm or rule out flukes as a cause. It's simple and the least intrusive thing we can do right now and will give us a lot of information.

 

[Mark Waltermire]

He actually looks really good in the pictures. I'll say that if he has flukes, then the clowns do too. If you can catch one of those (and I say a clown simply because they should be much easier to catch than the tang) and do a 5 minute freshwater dip on it, then we can confirm or rule out flukes as a cause. It's simple and the least intrusive thing we can do right now and will give us a lot of information.

That actually sounds like a really good idea as the black and white clowns will swim into the net pretty easily. Are flukes something that ever go away on their own? I know ich will recede, but never it truly gone without copper and am not sure about too much with flukes.

 

[Mark Waltermire]

Here are two photos of him today and I went ahead and circled that spot so you can view my area of concern easier. All of the other white spots that appear to be on him in the photos are just micro bubbles in the water and are not attached to the purple tang.

I think the clownfish heard me talking about them swimming into the net as they did not want to be caught this morning. I'll have to give it another try in a couple of hours.

 

[melypr1985]

Are flukes something that ever go away on their own?

Not without treatment if fish are present or a six week fallow period if the fish have been removed or died.

 

[Zack K]

Could most be a start to “hole in the head” disease_Maybe_. Definitely just looks like a flaw though. I wouldn’t be to concerned.
-Zack

 

[VIN6]

@Mark Waltermire hows your purple tang doing? i think i have the same spot. but sure what is it... but im sure its not ich

 

[Mark Waltermire]

He’s doing great. He had that spot which healed in a couple days. Then he had a white spot on his left dorsil fin which disappeared after another couple days. I don’t know what the white spot was but it was way too big to be ich. Overall he’s doing fine now. Just a couple days of werid stuff all in a row.

 

[VIN6]

ok ok keep us updated. thanks

 

[Mark Waltermire]

Not really much more to have any updates on. I came to the conclusion that the white spot on the tail was just a little clump of sand as he seems to have it on some morning, but after swimming around it disappears. The purple tang is doing great going on 3 months now.