Ouch! White Cheek Tang has an accident!

[untamed]

This poor fella is having a very tough week. For about 10 days, he's displaying some kind of infection. If you think you know what the white spots are, let me know... He's the only fish in the tank that has these. My achilles has always had ich...or what I believed to be ich...very fine white spots....but this is different...larger white tufts.

Since he began to get "sick", I've been watching his feeding habits and it seems that he has a challenging time getting near the algae. The achilles tang does not allow him to get any algae. I'm thinking that he may be missing an important part of his diet as a result.

Anyway....so he's got these white spots and don't seem to be bothering him too much. Then today, he's either had a run-in with somebody or some piece of coral. Look at this terrible wound...Doesn't seem to be bothering him too much right now, but this sure looks nasty and open to infection.

I'll update as things progress. I think I have reason to be concerned with this guy.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0381.jpg

[fishoholic]

Not sure about the spots but that's a nasty cut on his side :sad: The cut should heal with time, my yellow tang has a similar cut right now that has been healing up over the past few days.

BTW I thought that type of tang was a brown powder tang?
http://www.marinecenter.com/fish/tangs/powderbrowntang/

[untamed]

Common names...yes. This fish is often called a powder brown...or gold rimmed...or white cheek...or in this case, Buster.

A. japonicus is correct.

Glad to hear that an injury like this is survivable. They are amazing some times.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Jeez thats deep. Poor guy. Hopefully he can get some food to help him heal. The only thing that comes to mind for white tufts growing on the fish is Lymphocystis but it doesn't really look like that from that picture. "Cauliflower disease" does not have a cure but usually clears up on its own with good water conditions. I know your tank has great parameters too, so i have my doubts that is what it is but you may want to do a quick search on google and try to rule it out. I had a puffer who got it a few times even in a healthy tank and it went away each time. Never really figured out why he would get it though.

Good luck!

[naesco]

It appears that your powder brown tang has been attacked by the scapel of another tang.\
Immediately remove the fish and place it in a QT. IMO that size of injury will not heal in the main tank as fungal and bacterial disease will doom your beautiful fish. Move quickly as a weakened tang will be victemized by the others.

Feed it garlic extreme soaked food. Garlic has antifungal properties.

Medicate carefully as per directions with Saltwater Maroxy by Mardel Laboratories. It is for true fungus and an anti-bacterial agent
Medicate carefully with a neomycin based anti-bacterial medication. IME the rest are useless product.

[Aquattro]

It appears that your powder brown tang has been attacked by the scapel of another tang.

Absolutely. I'd follow Naesco's advice and treat separately. Keep in mind, this could happen again.

[seanoman]

could possibly be flukes. If you could get him out it may be worth a try to do a fresh water dip. We had a regal tang that had flukes and we dipped it, it worked great, you could actually see the flukes falling off of it. If it's fungal, then it's going to be more difficult to treat. Good Luck!!

[naesco]

Did the powder brown tang have ich as well?
The reason I ask that a weakened fish will develope fungal growth at the site the ich once were. If that is the case I would suggest you do a water change on the main tank as well.

[untamed]

Did the powder brown tang have ich as well?
The reason I ask that a weakened fish will develope fungal growth at the site the ich once were. If that is the case I would suggest you do a water change on the main tank as well.

That's interesting. These white tufts seem fungal to me. While he sometimes had a few "ich marks", he didn't generally show much sign of ich. Nothing like the achilles anyway.

Water change won't do much.

To the others that suggested I catch/medicate. Yes, that would be nice...not much hope in catching him at this point though. If he takes a turn for the worse and looses a step or two, I might be able to get him. Of course, by then it is usually too late.

[naesco]

That's interesting. These white tufts seem fungal to me. While he sometimes had a few "ich marks", he didn't generally show much sign of ich. Nothing like the achilles anyway.

Water change won't do much.

To the others that suggested I catch/medicate. Yes, that would be nice...not much hope in catching him at this point though. If he takes a turn for the worse and looses a step or two, I might be able to get him. Of course, by then it is usually too late.

I know it is tough to get her out but give it a try. You might get lucky.
Use two people with two large nets to corner her or if she hides in the rock cover one exit with the net and force her into it. Night time works better. If you can keep the other tangs away from that end of the tank, try enticing her with a sheet of garlic soaked nori than net her.

It is likely she will develope a nasty bacterial infection and if there in an opportunity it may spread to your other fish and that is the other reason you want her out. The achilles and other tangs will recognize she is failing and kill her.

[untamed]

Time will tell. I've never sucessfully intervened and saved a fish that was in trouble. I've killed a few trying. While he continues to eat well and behave normally, I'm going to watch.

[phreezee]

From experience, I've had a Powder Brown with a deep gash like that from a Powder Blue and he healed up perfectly fine. I ended up selling him to a fellow CanReefer in tip top shape.

As long as it's eating it'll be ok. I'd run ozone/uv for the white spots. Both will heal up faster in a hospital tank though as it's obvious some other fish is causing him stress.

[Aquattro]

I had a clown that had almost half her head detached from a tang attack, and she healed up fine as well, in the main tank. I was shocked, I didn't think she'd make it through the day, so they are resilient creatures, this one could recover fine where it is!

[fishoholic]

Time will tell. I've never sucessfully intervened and saved a fish that was in trouble. I've killed a few trying. While he continues to eat well and behave normally, I'm going to watch.

This is what I would do, I too have killed fish in QT trying to save them.

My lavender tang (RIP) had a real bad case of ich however she was eating fine and didn't seemed bothered by it when she was in the main tank. But still I thought I should take her out and do hypo in QT. She survived almost the whole QT process (all the ich was gone) however the stress of the hypo and the stress of going from a 230g to a 30g QT tank killed her. She was alive the day before we went to bring her to her new home, unfortunately in the morning when we went to catch her to bring her to her new home she was dead :cry: I have to say I lost a lot of faith in practice and use of QT methods.

I soak the mysis I feed my fish in selcon and garlic when any of them have a cut or scrape etc. and it seems to help my fish heal faster. I would try that and keep an eye them.

[tang daddy]

I have a coral beauty that had a gash way worse than your PB, and at first I thought that it was a gonner however after 3 days the open wound started healing up and now you'd never notice that it was ever there.... no scares whatsoever. The wound was so open you can see it's flesh almost to the bone half inch wide by 1.5 inch long. Trying to qt a fish can put alot of stress on it especially when you try to catch it, personally I would see about the wound if it heals within a week.

[untamed]

Here is an update photo taken after 8 days. So far, a remarkable recovery in a short time.

You can see, the lymphocystis has not changed much (if that is what he's got...). I've added Selcon to their diet to see if that can help at all.

Dec 31
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0381.jpg

Jan 2
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0387.jpg

Jan 4
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0427.jpg

Jan 6
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0435.jpg

Jan 8
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0438.jpg

[justinl]

might just be my imagination, but it looks like the cut is starting to close. I would do the same though, leave it be and pump it full of as much food as you can. set up a other algae stations if it is getting pushed away from the other.

[JDigital]

That definitely looks like progress in the right direction regarding the wound..

[Joe Reefer]

Wow, I am surprised Buster's guts didn't fall out!

[BC564]

so do you have updated pics....I am finding this thread very interesting.....and curious at the same time.

[untamed]

so do you have updated pics....I am finding this thread very interesting.....and curious at the same time.

I've been updating the earlier post (pics above). You can see he is healing very well at 8 days. I'll update again on tomorrow. It would seem that by 12 or 15 days he will be completely healed.

[untamed]

I think I'll stop updating this thread now because he has all but made a complete recovery after 10 days. Now...if I can only figure out how to cure his white spot problem. So far, selcon hasn't helped.

In summary...here are two photos - Dec 31 and Jan 10

Dec 31
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0381.jpg

Jan 10
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r118/untamed_photos/Fish%20pictures/100_0447.jpg

[justinl]

fantastic recovery Brad! good to see it's going to pull through.

[christyf5]

Wow thats awesome! Its amazing what fish can recover from :biggrin:

[naesco]

Untamed have you been feeding garlic extract to try to clear up the apparent fungal infection?

[Trigger Man]

ya that was a quick recovery. Great work.

[untamed]

Untamed have you been feeding garlic extract to try to clear up the apparent fungal infection?


Ironically, when I added some fresh ground garlic to the regular food the fish hated it. Maybe I used too much. I'll try that again. No harm in trying it anyway.