Fox Face in trouble
 

I came home from work today and my FoxFace has some weird spots. I would normally classify him as clumsy at best and usually has some type of scrape or scratch weekly but he has developed 2 strange dots and behind his fin is this red inflammation. He has also been hosting in a devil's hand for about 4 weeks. Other issues in the tank include a ich outbreak on my Hippo Tang in the last two days.

Any ideas what it might be?
http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/...eat=directlink

I have been trying to raise calcium and alk at about 30ml of part A and B once or twice a day.


SG 1.025
Alk 10
Cal 420
Nitrite 0.1 or less.

Sounds like something is stressing your fish. My Foxface looks like that when he is stressed or when he just wakes up in the morning. I also noticed he has his spines flaired up and they dont usually do that unless they feel threatened. Stress would also explain the ich outbreak.

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right I was just curious if anyone had seen spots like the ones he has before. Are they a result of hosting in the devil's hand?

I didn't know Foxfaces host, is this normal behaviour? I would think that the secretions from the devil's hand would irritate his skin, considering that they pack quite the toxic punch to other creatures. Well, maybe not as bad as a toadstool... but still, I thought all leather corals secreted toxic substances?

Yeah that sound's strange, I did a lot of reading up on them before I got my magnificent and never came across any mention of hosting. The spines being erect like that are a sign of stress/defensive posture. Is it possible that perhaps your clowns or someone else is bugging him? Why I ask is that I've noticed weird circular abrasions on my fish from time to time and could never figure out what was causing them. they were about dime sized and never amounted to more than a very fine circle just barely visible. A while ago I discovered the cause, my red-lipped blenny does the occaisonal banzai attack on unsuspecting tankmates. Just a thought.

To raise Ca and Alk together try a little Kalk, use the calculator to figure out how much to add to your top off water.

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html

Enter your present Ca and Alk readings, enter your target and select the product you want to use. I did it, I wanted to raise my Ca and Alk, to use ESV I would have had to use half the bottle of each. The target I wanted indicated I should add 5 litres of saturated limewater for the Ca and 2 liters for the Alk. I added the 2 and then a bit of the ESV a couple days later and Alk and Ca are great. Ca is 425 and Alk is 9dKH

Douglas

Mine hosts/hides in my leather and under my toadstool as well. No real damage seen, the odd spot but I can't conclusively say it's from the leather.

Hmm interesting... you learn something new every day, they say, and I just learned one more thing about foxfaces :biggrin: starting to like these guys more and more.

Any change plutoniumJoe? The mention of inflammation worries me a little... other than the little spots, is there an visible damage? How bout a pic? What are the other tankmates?

Mine does it too. It's where he sleeps at night. I guess all of the other fish already have the prime spots in the rocks taken as the foxface was the most recent addition. He flares out his spines to protect himself while sleeping and to lodge himself securely in place.

Fluffy "hosted" a Koralia 4 and a return pipe :) every night in between the two like clockwork :) till i moved it them in some macroalgae mix.

The inflamation is almost completely gone and the dots have disappeared. He seems to be doing much better. Other tank mates seem happy and healthy except the hippo who is still fighting off some ich.

I will try to worry less and enjoy more. Thanks for all the advice.

Good to hear that things have improved :biggrin:

Happy to hear the foxface is better.....I LOVE those fish. Sounds like your hippo is coming along as well. Keep them happy and healthy :smile: