Yellow tang HLLE?

[FLPilot3190]

My juvenile biota yellow tang has some white areas behind his eyes and his lateral lines on either side are lighter than the rest of his body although he’s not truly a saturated yellow color. He’s more of a translucent yellow. He’s roughly 3” long.

He’s fed twice a day along with the rest of the fish. I alternate between spirulina mysis and reef frenzy (both enriched with selcon and vita chem). He also gets nori (again with selcon or vita chem and garlic concentrate) at least every other day but usually every day. Everyone else enjoys TDO chroma boost as well but he’s too good for that.

Tank parameters:
New setup as of 12/23
Temp: 78F
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.0
Alk: 8.5
NO3: 8-10
PO4: .08-.11
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
No carbon in the tank.
Currently FOWLR as I let the tank mature before I move all my coral over from my other tank.

Could this be HLLE or the epithelial thinning I’ve been reading about? Or is this just normal for a smaller tang?

 

[vetteguy53081]

My juvenile biota yellow tang has some white areas behind his eyes and his lateral lines on either side are lighter than the rest of his body although he’s not truly a saturated yellow color. He’s more of a translucent yellow. He’s roughly 3” long.

He’s fed twice a day along with the rest of the fish. I alternate between spirulina mysis and reef frenzy (both enriched with selcon and vita chem). He also gets nori (again with selcon or vita chem and garlic concentrate) at least every other day but usually every day. Everyone else enjoys TDO chroma boost as well but he’s too good for that.

Tank parameters:
New setup as of 12/23
Temp: 78F
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.0
Alk: 8.5
NO3: 8-10
PO4: .08-.11
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
No carbon in the tank.
Currently FOWLR as I let the tank mature before I move all my coral over from my other tank.

Could this be HLLE or the epithelial thinning I’ve been reading about? Or is this just normal for a smaller tang?

Tang does have good body mass but also HLLE which cause pits and flesh missing mainly in tangs, angels and some rabbitfish. It is often caused by poor water quality, high use of carbon, poor water quality (elevated nitrate and ammonia) and inadequate/poor diet. It is not life threating in any way but offers secondary infection in some cases.
Maintaining GOOD water quality and diet are often the fixes and with severe cases, some healing.
Some foods to feed tang are :
LRS herbivore diet
Formula 2 flake and frozen
TDO Pellets
small plankton
Hikari Marine cuisine
Ocean nutrition veggie diet
spirulina brine shrimp
mysis shrimp
Prime reef
Nori seaweed basted with garlic extract

Add selcon vitamins to foods occasionally

 

[FLPilot3190]

Thanks for the reply. Water quality is good and stable. I feed a variety of frozen foods as well as green, purple, and red nori with selcon and vita chem. Haven’t noticed much of a change in the last month.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for the reply. Water quality is good and stable. I feed a variety of frozen foods as well as green, purple, and red nori with selcon and vita chem. Haven’t noticed much of a change in the last month.

When you say water quality is good.... how are you testing ? Disregard Nitrite which plays a role in freshwater and not regarded an issue in seawater unless Sky High

 

[FLPilot3190]

Hanna for NO3, PO4, and Alk. Milwaukee controller for pH (calibrated monthly). Ca and Mg are Red Sea Pro (results very closely match ICP results), and SG is via a Vee Gee refractometer (calibrated almost weekly with both fluid from BRS and DIY calibration fluid).

 

[Jay Hemdal]

My juvenile biota yellow tang has some white areas behind his eyes and his lateral lines on either side are lighter than the rest of his body although he’s not truly a saturated yellow color. He’s more of a translucent yellow. He’s roughly 3” long.

He’s fed twice a day along with the rest of the fish. I alternate between spirulina mysis and reef frenzy (both enriched with selcon and vita chem). He also gets nori (again with selcon or vita chem and garlic concentrate) at least every other day but usually every day. Everyone else enjoys TDO chroma boost as well but he’s too good for that.

Tank parameters:
New setup as of 12/23
Temp: 78F
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.0
Alk: 8.5
NO3: 8-10
PO4: .08-.11
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
No carbon in the tank.
Currently FOWLR as I let the tank mature before I move all my coral over from my other tank.

Could this be HLLE or the epithelial thinning I’ve been reading about? Or is this just normal for a smaller tang?

I wrote about this a few years ago. Some of these fish grow out of it.

HLLE Archives - CORAL Magazine

www.coralmagazine.com

Jay

 

[FLPilot3190]

I wrote about this a few years ago. Some of these fish grow out of it.

HLLE Archives - CORAL Magazine

www.coralmagazine.com

Jay

Thanks!

 

[OrionN]

Your tank is an extremely sterile tank. This may have something to do with your tang poor color and the HLLE. Tangs, and all the animals will do a lot better in a natural tank with natural and diverse Fauna and Flora. Fish will always do better with diverse live rocks. Your tank looks like a new fish only with just sterile dry rock.

Your's

Mine:

 

[Ziggy17]

A lot of my LFS won’t bring in Biota YTs as the colour are hit and miss. The misses are lack lustre in colour. And at the cost of them, you really should be getting a gorgeous show piece fish…

 

[Wildcats1023]

I was told by LFS that as they get older the yellow darkens. An in store tank has a few older biota yellow tangs that started out as the pale yellow but now are the normal darker yellow we all want.

 

[Biota_Marine]

A lot of my LFS won’t bring in Biota YTs as the colour are hit and miss. The misses are lack lustre in colour. And at the cost of them, you really should be getting a gorgeous show piece fish…

Hey Y'all

We let all of our customers and stores know that all of them end up turning yellow and often are bright yellow before we ship them out. It usually takes a few days in a new environment but it can vary on parameters, stress levels, diets, ect. The longest I've seen was 1.5 months but they were getting bullied a bit by other tang in the tank.

Like said above a varied diet and a mature tank helps ensure the transition is a bit quicker.