Is this normal or HLLE on my Purple Tang (1 Viewer)

[CKramer]

Howdy - Long-story-short, we took over a 5-year established reef tank with a Purple Tang in it when we purchased a house. He seems to be acting normal and eats frozen food, but his face just looks odd. As you can see from the attached photos, he has black areas around his eyes. Is that normal or possible HLLE? He has looked like this since we took ownership of the tank.

We are very new to reefing, but my husband was changing out the carbon yesterday and believes there might have been carbon escaping previously.

Let me know what you think, and thanks in advance!

 

[Seaworthy Aquatics]

Yes that appears to be HLLE. The area around the eyes and the deformed fins are both symptoms. The slightly visible lateral line is also a symptom, but can sometimes appear on healthy fish as well and is usually due to stress, which could be due to the HLLE. Has it progressed any since you got the fish? Do you run carbon in the tank? If so, remove it. What do you feed them at this point? I'd add Selecon, vitamins and plenty of nori to its diet if you don't already. With a proper diet they can partially recover, but will always bear some sign of its bout with HLLE, such as the fins and patching around the eyes as these will never fully reform.

 

[CKramer]

Yes that appears to be HLLE. The area around the eyes and the deformed fins are both symptoms. The slightly visible lateral line is also a symptom, but can sometimes appear on healthy fish as well and is usually due to stress, which could be due to the HLLE. Has it progressed any since you got the fish? Do you run carbon in the tank? If so, remove it. What do you feed them at this point? I'd add Selecon, vitamins and plenty of nori to its diet if you don't already. With a proper diet they can partially recover, but will always bear some sign of its bout with HLLE, such as the fins and patching around the eyes as these will never fully reform.

Thank you! I don't think it has progressed. We feed LRS Fish Frenzy, which was left by the previous owners. But since it has been running out, we have started switching over to Rod's.

The tank does have carbon, but we don't think it was done properly. My husband can speak more to that, but something about he believes small bits of carbon were finding their way into the tank previously.

 

[frankc]

I second the use of nori. I use a product from Ocean Nutrition that contains garlic, but any dried seaweed should help. I used to have terrible issues with HLLE, but as soon as I started feeding the seaweed 3 times a week, it stopped progressing and the tang lived another 7-8 years.

 

[webster1234]

Agree with above. You don't need to run carbon unless you are trying to remove something like medication from the water. There have been suspicions forever that it can cause HLLE.

There is no "safe" way to run carbon. You rinse it, put it in something like a reactor or mesh bag, and put it in. There will always be "dust" that gets into the tank. But I don't think the dust is the problem. The carbon likely strips something needed from the water and the end result is HLLE.

Of course other things can cause HLLE too. Nutrition is another. Tangs are herbivores, not omnivores or carnivores. There is very little, if any, seaweed in most frozen fish food. Depending on what other fish you have, I would feed a good pellet for tangs such as New Life Spectrum AlgaeMax and go to the Asian section in the grocery store and get the 10"x10" packs of nori that they make sushi rolls with and put some on an algae clip for him.
I have about 10 tangs and they would eat nothing but mysis if that's all I fed them. But they would also be unhealthy and probably suffer other ailments from a compromised immune system.