Coral Beauty is sick...

[hocky98]

I have a 75 gallon tank that just finished cycling, so I went out and got a coral beauty. I currently have 6 damsels, 2 hermit crabs, and a chocolate chip starfish. My coral beauty has skin errosion behind her side fins behind the head (not sure the name of the fins.) I looked her over and though she was just shedding a little scale, but when I examined her closely, she had raw skin.
Can anyone help with a name for this and a treatment. I think it may be HLLE. She also does not seam to be eating much, but that may be that she was just put in the tank 2 days ago.

 

[hocky98]

The raw area is a small spot, not a line, so it may be a bacterial infection, but I'm not sure how to treat it.

 

[beth]

hocky, use a magnifying glass to see if you can detect more details about the problem. Did this fish have the problem when you got him, or since he came to your tank?
Can you post a picture?
Take a look at the FAQ Thread at the top of this forum, and look at the pictures there of fish with HLLE to see if any of that looks simuliar to what you are seeing.

 

[hocky98]

I'm not sure if it was there when it came home. My lfs told me to pull it out and try to remove the flakes and apply an antibaterial ointment. When I did that, I noticed it had holes in the skin. The holes are about an 1/8" round and goes to the meat. They are not lines like in the pictures, just a hole on each side behind the fin. All my test levels are perfect and my other fish have no problems at all.

 

[hocky98]

I'm sorry to say the Angel did not survive. I think maybe the Damsels were attacking it, but I did not see it happening.

 

[nicetry]

I would strongly suggest not getting another angel fish for your tank until a few months have passed by. Placing them in newly established systems is often a death sentence in itself. Angels are one of the species that are very sensitive to water conditions, and new tanks, even if cycled, are not stable enough to maintain these fish in many cases. After 5-6 months, you could try another, but hold off and let your tank age/season for awhile. The damsels are likely to harass anything else you put in there, so removing them would also be a consideration.