Tangs with HLLE

[bruce]

I just wanted to let everyone know that many years back I puchased an emperator angel sub adult, that had severe head and lateral line disease. he appeared in really bad shape and the pet store gave him to myself at a greatly reduced price as even they had little hope for him.
I can't recall all the foods I had fed him, but always did give him a varied diet as I do with all fish, but there is One product that a friend gave me to try and I swear it was/is the answer to this HLL and yes it can most definatelty be reversed. The product as many know is called selcon concentrate Vitamin, and I soaked almost everything I fed him with this product. His HLL reversed in a very short period of time and after a few short months, the only indication that there had ever been a problem was some small slightly noticable scarring around a few areas on his head. All I can say is that I am firmly confident that it was the product that not only saved this fishes life ,but restored him to his former glory.
I hope someone else can or has benefited from this.

[Chaloupa]

I also have heard excellent results with Selcon. I use it ALL the time and none of my tangs have ever had an issue..however I feed a very very full diet for them....so I'd try adding selcon, increasing the things he eats (more varied, with things like Mysis, Emerald Entree, and many many other frozen foods enriched with vitamins)

[aquajeep]

i got a yellow tang for discount because he had pretty bad hlle. i added him to my system that was getting overgrown with all sorts of culerpa and hair algea.he picked away at it till it was under control after 4 months he showed good signs that he was getting much better and fatened up well. and then my anemone ate him lol.. oops

[edikpok]

To help my regal that was developing the HLLE disease, I removed the activated carbon (as the powderish debree seem to be correlated with HLLE), started to feed with Romaine lettuce and nori sheets, and soak foods in selcon. The pigment does not regress anymore and slowly heals

[RD]

A study that was performed in 2001 by Dr. Ruth Francis-Floyd, Chris Tilghman, and RuthEllen Klinger from the University of Florida, shows just how important nutrient levels can be to certain species of fish kept in captivity. This particular study involved captive nutritional management of herbivorous reef fish using Surgeonfish as test subjects and were divided into 3 groups. The first Group was fed washed seaweed (ulva spp.). The second group was fed a commercially prepared all purpose type pellet food, and the third group was fed a commercial flake food that was supposedly designed specifically for herbivores.

At the end of the study, the ulva and flake fed groups suffered high mortality rates, (61%, and 39%), with the surviving fish showing clinical signs of malnourishment. Some had become emaciated to paper-thin condition. The second group (fed commercial pellets) performed the best, all fish gained steady weight, no deaths, and no apparent signs of any disease. The information from this study was made available during a lecture in 2001 at the Marine Ornamentals International Conference, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and has also been published in "Marine Ornamental Species - Collection, Culture, and Conservation by James C. Cato, and Christopher L. Brown.

You can read the full results of their study in the link below.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&...page&q&f=false


The seaweed diet - 39% of the test group exhibited extreme wasting, with 61% dieing before the end of the study.

The flake diet - Most fish gained weight, yet 27% came down with Hole in the Head/Head & Lateral Line Erosion Syndrome, 16% exhibited exopthalmia, corneal opacity, and apparent blindness, and 39% died before the end of the study.

The pellet diet - On average all of the pellet eating fish steadily gained weight, with no noticeable signs of disease, and no deaths.


If you check the Acknowledgments portion of the paper linked to above you should be able to figure out who supplied the pellet food for this study.


HTH

[naesco]

You are working to slowly improve the water conditions.
You will need to feed the sailfin top quality spirulina disks (look to make sure the first ingredient is spirulina) or wafers soaked in selcon.
You will need to feed the regal top quality meaty food soaked in selcon. (Remember regals are meat eaters.)
IME unless a reefer has left it too late, HLLE can be reversed.
Good Luck

[BlueAbyss]

That study is a little swayed, obviously a tang fed nothing but sea lettuce (the seaweed equivalent of iceberg lettuce) is going to develop some pretty bad deficiencies. Commercial prepared (enriched) pellets and disks are far superior to something like that though should probably still be supplemented with a variety of foods. I've seen video of a yellow tang eating a chunk of banana.

[RD]

Certainly, no big surprise there, but I think there are some important points that one can take away from that study.

1. adding seaweed to the fishes diet is most likely not going to help resolve HLLE.

2. compare the actual nutrient levels found in ones pellet/flake/disc food to those used in the study, and see how they stack up.

IMO HLLE can be reversed, without using products such as selcon, or using a shotgun approach to feeding.