Yellow Eye Kole Tang Facial Coloration

G

Grumpyfish

Premium Member
Hello,We’ve had our yellow eye kole tang (“Buzz”) for about six months.  He eats like a champ, is extremely active, and has never shown any signs of parasites or infections that I can tell.  He’s been a great fish.  However, the coloration around his face is pale, almost like he’s wearing a mask. It started small and has grown slowly.  It’s the same pattern on both sides of his face, so I don’t think it’s an infection or wound.  From the pictures I’ve seen from my Google searches, it might be HLLE (head and lateral line erosion), but I’m not sure. (I cut back on the activated carbon just in case.)  I cannot find anything else online that seems similar.  Could this just be something normal for this kind of tang?  Stress?  Vitamin deficiency?  I feed Rod’s and frozen Mysis soaked in garlic and Selcon, various seaweeds, NLS Thera A pellets, and Cobalt Aquatics flake food.  Nitrates have been high lately (around 20-25 but getting lower), but this started before then.  Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. ThanksView attachment 5455
 
When you say cut back on Carbon, did you remove all of it? You can also bring down your salinity a little.  
 
Thanks, Steve.  I normally run carbon 24/7/365 in a media reactor, but I dialed it down to a trickle after reading about it possibly causing HLLE.  I may turn it off completely, but I dosed Chemiclean last week and want to make sure it's gone before I completely stop running carbon. I also did a large water change last Saturday.Salinity is usually between 1.023 and 1.024. Should I go lower than that? Is that just to make it easier on the fish to breath? 
 
I like to run the Salinity at 1.015 to help reduce stress on a sick fish and then bring it back up slowly when they improve. If you have a QT tank without carbon you could move the fish for a few weeks. I see this happen in tanks when they run allot of carbon, or if the carbon has a high dust level, not rinsed or a high mag level when running carbon. 
 
Thanks again for your insight.  I do have a QT, but rather than stress out the fish (and me) by trying to catch him, I'd rather just stop running carbon in the DT to see how that works.  If it doesn't after a few weeks, I can try the QT.  I'm sure he'll love being back in that again! I put the carbon (BRS or Red Sea brand) in one of those mini BRS reactors and then use it to take out the first 5 gallons or so of water during a water change.  Do you think that does a good enough job of rinsing?  If not, I can always do more. Shame on me, but I haven't checked magnesium in a while.
 
That rinse should be good as long as it is not tumbling in the reactor. It might take a month before you see improvement as it took several months to get to the condition it is. 
 
There shouldn't be any tumbling as I sandwich the carbon between two foam pieces. I'll keep you posted.  Thanks again for all the help.
 
I can't tell from the picture, but does he have tissue at the same level as the rest of the fish on the white space, or is it closer to bare skeleton?  Someone I know has a desjardini with hole in the head.  At this point the cause has been removed (long story), and the fish is otherwise healthy and fat, but at the same time I don't expect the facial scarring to heal.  Tissue color returned 20%, but there is a clear thin spot, almost like the outer layer of the fish has been shaved off in that area.
 
Honestly, he's never still long enough to get a good look, but I don't think it's down to the bone, though I could be wrong. 
 
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