Possible Burn Marks On Sailfin Tang

[jarret]

I noticed that our Sailfin Tang was acting rather slugging this morning compared to normal as he was sitting up in the corner of the tank and not moving. He was laying on his side and I actually thought he was dead to be honest until I reached in an touched him and he started to move.

I noticed a long the bottom edge of him that there were these white marks almost like the skin had been shaved off or burned. He was sitting over near the heater in the tank so I'm thinking this is a possible issue.

The picture below is what I just took about 10 minutes ago. Sorry for quality, was taken with my cell phone but hopefully you can see what I was talking about.

There haven't been any new tankmates added to the tank lately, the only other tankmates with him are a cinnamon clownfish and a chocolate chip starfish. They have all been housed with him for several months and we have never had problems before.

This issue seemed to appear overnight so I am not too sure on what has happened. We did have a reef tank up above him overflow last night so some of the water from that tank may have ended up in the sailfin's tank but I don't believe that the water would have caused what is wrong with him.

Does anybody have any idea as to what could possibly be wrong? From what I can tell it looks like he was burned.....

 

[lsky5101982]

Is this guy still hanging in there? Hard to say what went wrong there... maybe your heater is on the fritz and he fell asleep resting against it? Looks kinda like Head and Lateral Line Erosion.... except it is in the wrong place. I doubt the clownfish attacked him, but I would not rule out that the starfish was chewing on him some.

 

[Kevin8888]

I would say (with reasonable confidence) that it is (assuming hes still alive) a Bacterial ulcer, aka damage to tissue (can happen any way) and it got infected. Ive been seeing this alot lately, especialy with tangs, as tangs are more suseptable to skin diseases because of their thiner mucus layer protecting them.
Is the redish bit exposed tissue? If it is I would say with about 90% confidence that I'm right. But if you have been seeing temp fluctuations then it is probable that the fish was burned as you say, and then got infected because of the damage. Thats my 2 cents worth, if he is still around I can give you some advice on treatment, or some links to treatment options.

 

[lsky5101982]

I enjoy keeping and watching the tangs, but I gave up on putting them in my tanks for now. No matter how healthy the other fish are they always seem to be coming down with some kind of skin infection.

 

[Kevin8888]

I enjoy keeping and watching the tangs, but I gave up on putting them in my tanks for now. No matter how healthy the other fish are they always seem to be coming down with some kind of skin infection.

Tangs can be "hardy" fish but I think when they say that they mean the live/eat well and the like, BUT only in very clean water (reffering to 0 nitrites and ammonia that is for the most part) as they seem to have the equivilent of sensitive skin that humans have. In other words they get "chemical" burns from ammonia and nitrites as well as other things more readily, and their thin mucus layer also means if they get scratched when the water isnt perfect then they will get infected much easier.
Which is why its good to have a QT/hospital tank with UV and a good skimmer to keep everything out of the water and if not dosing with copper then throw a cleaner shrimp or 2 in to help keep the infected tissue clean (kind of like how people used to use maggots on infected tissue to get rid of the dead stuff).