What’s going on with our sailfin?

[Head Case]

The sailfin came with the tank when we adopted it. It always had a slight discoloration on its forehead, but it has gotten more noticeable. Additionally it has developed an area on one side of its face that appears to be…? Not good?

It is still a voracious eater and very active. Curious as always and come up to observe you when you approach the tank. Mainly just concerned it has some that could affect the other fish. If it is potentially contagious like a disease or something we’ll get it out ASAP.

 

[MnFish1]

It looks potentially like HLLE (Head and Lateral line Erosion) - which can be caused by numerous things. IMHO - the fish looks thin at least in some of the picture (may be the light) - are you using an activated carbon product? If so - be sure it's high quality. Otherwise water conditions/nutrition are important. The other option would be an injury - depending on how fast the lesion developed (if it was overnight - its unlikely to be related to HLLE)

 

[Head Case]

Hmm. Ok. We feed it 2x/day. PE Mysiscand nori. It gets the lion’s share of the food. I guess we could add another cube or some pellets but I think it would get most of that too. Thank you for the suggestion on HLLE. I will look into it.

 

[OrionN]

It is HLLE which is due to poor condition over all, water quality and food. In addition to this, it is very thin. Tang should graze all day and should look full with bulging stomach. The first and last picture show it's spine is sticking out with essentially no tissue cover it. It suppost to indented in due to the thick muscle above and below it, in this cast it is sticking our due to the loss of tissue/muscle.

 

[Slocke]

How big is the tank? Sail fins are large, very active fish and need some good swimming room.

 

[Head Case]

Ok thank you. We’ll step up the feeding. The tank is 75gal, which I know is too small. The sailfin was already in the tank when we got it, so if we can improve it’s health we will try to rehome it before it out grows the tank

 

[OrionN]

If everything the same, how much the fish eat depends on it's mass. A fish 3 times the size of another fish should eat 27 times more food. More active fish eats more. Tangs are much more active than average aquarium fish. Variety of diet is also important, along with adequate water change with good salt water mix. The bulk of Sailfin tang diet should be vegetable matter. I tried variety of nori, I also use several pellets and mixture of flake food. If your tank is mostly algae free then use a nori clips. My tank usually finish with the algae by late afternoon. Here is my little write up on "How to....." feed nori to your tank:

Guide to Newbies: How to train, and feed Nori to our tanks

Teaching tangs to eat nori is relatively simple. If one fish in a tank know how to eat nori, the rest of the herbivores will learn in short order. However, if this is a new tank, and none of the tangs have seen nori before, they need to learn how...

www.reef2reef.com

edit: I should say: "A fish 3 times the lenght of another fish....."

 

[Head Case]

If everything the same, how much the fish eat depends on it's mass. A fish 3 times the size of another fish should eat 27 times more food. More active fish eats more. Tangs are much more active than average aquarium fish. Variety of diet is also important, along with adequate water change with good salt water mix. The bulk of Sailfin tang diet should be vegetable matter. I tried variety of nori, I also use several pellets and mixture of flake food. If your tank is mostly algae free then use a nori clips. My tank usually finish with the algae by late afternoon. Here is my little write up on "How to....." feed nori to your tank:

Guide to Newbies: How to train, and feed Nori to our tanks

Teaching tangs to eat nori is relatively simple. If one fish in a tank know how to eat nori, the rest of the herbivores will learn in short order. However, if this is a new tank, and none of the tangs have seen nori before, they need to learn how...

www.reef2reef.com

thank you. We had mainly been doing mysis shrimp with occasional nori. I increased nori to every day but didn’t realize that most of what it needs is algae. Our tank is fairly clean. Water parameters are good, but we just recovered from a week without power due to the hurricane. Despite my best efforts to cool the tank, high water temp (got close to 90) and a very interrupted lighting and circulation schedule probably stressed it even more.

 

[Head Case]

If everything the same, how much the fish eat depends on it's mass. A fish 3 times the size of another fish should eat 27 times more food. More active fish eats more. Tangs are much more active than average aquarium fish. Variety of diet is also important, along with adequate water change with good salt water mix. The bulk of Sailfin tang diet should be vegetable matter. I tried variety of nori, I also use several pellets and mixture of flake food. If your tank is mostly algae free then use a nori clips. My tank usually finish with the algae by late afternoon. Here is my little write up on "How to....." feed nori to your tank:

Guide to Newbies: How to train, and feed Nori to our tanks

Teaching tangs to eat nori is relatively simple. If one fish in a tank know how to eat nori, the rest of the herbivores will learn in short order. However, if this is a new tank, and none of the tangs have seen nori before, they need to learn how...

www.reef2reef.com

edit: I should say: "A fish 3 times the lenght of another fish....."

Just wanted to say thanks again. I began folding the nori sheet and using the clip. The sailfin pretty much hits it all morning long and will eat a sheet by lunch. Still hogging the mysis cube as well but hopefully the nori will help him return to health.