Scrapes or disease??

[nicky11]

So I got this little guy a couple months ago. He swims from side to side just fine, full of life, eats well....there are basically no signs of disease, except these little spots all over him. I did notice he sleeps in a small little space thats in the rock (the whitish rock in the pictures, it looks a little sharp on some edges) so in my opinion it seems like he just scrapes himself a bit....what do you guys think??

 

[nicky11]

also reading a couple other threads on here, I saw that anemone stings could also cause little spots, I do have quite a bit of aiptasia, large ones too....could this also be the problem??

 

[Kevin8888]

I would bet its burns from corals/anemones. That big sucker in the third pic is probably be the culprit. I personaly would take some action to get rid of them. If they are so big I would recomend picking the rocks out out the water, and litteraly pulling/cutting the aiptasia right off the rock. To at least cut down the population/size.

 

[nicky11]

finally someone....lol...I had a feeling it was the aiptasia stinging it, once I saw another thread that mentioned that. I was nervous it was ick or some other parasite. As I've read up that when they're that small its hard to treat them. The first time it happened a few weeks ago I tried an experiment and squished garlic to get as much of the juice out and then soaked the food in it, and I dont know if its just my imagination but he seemed to get better after a couple days, but this little relapse got me suspicious...had to ask for other opinions.

Any natural remedies for the aiptasia though, I dont get any of the chemicals or even peppermint shrimp down here...I saw an interesting idea of injecting lemon juice straight into them, and here we got some pretty strong lemons....opinions???

(thanks for the reply kevin)

 

[Gprime]

+1 for Aiptasia burns, it also looks like he has a bit of lateral line disease(Hole in the head) under his eyes though. But that could also just be burns. For the big ones do what kevin said and take the rock out and burns/cut/scrape the anemone off the rock for the smaller ones Aiptasia X works really well.

 

[Kevin8888]

Hmm... I could have sworn I posted again last night.... lol oh well any ways. SO killing them your chemicaly safest way is to inject them with Boiling fresh water, as the fresh water causes osmotic shock and the boiling does burns, this way the chemisty of your tank wont be effected. But this is only good for big ones and if you only have a few. Other common options are Kalkwiser paste (mix Kalkwiser with water just enough to make a paste), put a pea size gob on top of each aiptasia and soon enough they should be dead, and of course there are fish that will pick them off rocks, though I wouldn't recomend them for smaller tanks, finaly there is the Berghia Nudibranch, a sea-slug that litterally only eats aiptasia. I'm sure other options will work but I don't know anything about them.

And I would say your tang doesnt have HLLE. But just for general safety/recovery make sure there is always enough algea for him to eat, I see some on the rocks, but I recomend adding some nori sheets as well just for veriety, that is if you don't already do that.

 

[Pazzoman]

yeah definite the aiptasia...tangs usually enjoy staying in rocks and actually laying on them directly....my tang that I had did that, and the tangs in my cuz tank do that.

 

[nicky11]

Well its been a couple days, and the tang is doing much better, it seems that it was just a few aiptasia burns, thank god, I'd be very disappointed if it got sick and didn't make it, as I've read how when they are small, once they get sick it is hard to treat them. With feeding, I have been giving him Hikari Marine S and frozen brine shrimp, the algae in the tank I supposed was enough for it to nibble on, but I'll give nori a try, heard they love it.

I will also be giving the boiling water injection a try, seems much safer than the lemon juice and as I know someone coming from miami soon, I'll be asking them to bring me some aiptasia x for all the small ones.

Thanks for the help and advice guys