Emperor Angel with HLLD

dougedoug

Member
I am new the hobby (about 9 months in) so this is a new one to me. My emperor angel has HLLD. Looking for a solution to resolve it. I have noticed that he does not eat any of the seaweed sheets anymore. So it could be due to poor diet. I have heard soaking some of the food he does eat in vitamins does help. Any recommendations?
The take is 200 gallons with the fish below. Tank maintenance is good. 25% water changes once a month.
Emperor Angel
Porcupine Puffer
Snowflake eel
Hippo Tang
Green Wrasse
Blue Gill Angelfish
2 volitans lionfish
 

dougedoug

Member
Can anyone recommend some specific testing kits with Manufacturers name? I only get my ph levels checked once a month. Also my salinity?
 

dougedoug

Member
Just did a water change which I have done every 3-4 weeks.
Nitrates 0
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
PH 8.2-8.3
I feed every day but not the same thing. Very rarely is there anything left to eat.
One day silversides, mysis shrinp, prawn shrimp (I thaw them in a cup of water from the tank then feed)
Next day green algae (1/3 a sheet)
Every other day I also remove any waste I find in the tank. The puffer does create quite a bit. There is a dead spot or two in the tank where waste sometimes collects but I get to it with in 24 hours.

 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, from the pics, it does look like HLLE. Are the fish's eyes ok? It seem a bit cloudy in the pic.
If you follow the advise in the article I linked, you should be able to clear up the problem. I would suggest feeding twice a day. The meaty food in the am, and then the algae in the pm. Only feeding algae sheets every other day is not enough daily nutrition. It is better to feed smaller portions more often, then one large portion daily. In the wild, fish are always scavenging for food. Add zoecon or selcon to the diet by soaking the supplement during the thaw process of the meaty food.
If you have dead spots, you might want to add additional water circulation in the dead spots. Its best to not have any dead spots in the aquaria and it is easily solved by adding a powerhead in areas that don't receive adequate circulation.
 

dougedoug

Member
The one eye is enlarged. I just noticed that this morning as the other one is fine. I will make a donation to a charity of your choice for helping me out.
In regards to food what would recommend on a daily basis? I provided the size of each fish and the exact food I have can you give an idea of what approximate amounts would work best?
Food:
Green algae sheets (with supposed garlic extract, I heard you need to use fresh garlic)
PROSALT MARINE VARIETY
This is a combination of 10 different flash frozen cube items in one package. Something for everyone in your marine community tank. Includes: Brine Shrimp, Sea Urchin, Squid, Shrimp, Pro Green, Krill, Pacifica Plankton, Clams, Silversides and Pro V.
PROSALT PRAWN:
Prawns are small whole shrimp that are 1/2" - 1 1/2" in size that are flash frozen in a pack. They are also known as grass shrimp, Glass shrimp or ghost shrimp. It's color ranges from white to pink to clear. Great for fresh water and marine carnivoires and omnivoires.
PROSALT SILVERSIDES
:

Prosalt uses freshly caught Silbersides that are individually quick frozen and flash frozen in our flash freezer and packed loosely in a resealable tub. Prosalt is the original and leading producer of TRUE Silbersides in the U.S.A. Often copied but never duplicated. Imposters use white fish (which are not even saltwater) or anchovies, while the ones who use true silbersides pack it with loads of water. ProSalt pack its Silversides with a minimum amount of water.
Fish:
Blue Gill Angel - 4-5 inches
Emperor Angel - 7 inches
Snowflake - 15-18inches
Green bird wrasse - 6 inches
1 volitans lion is about 8 inches
1 volitans lion is about 4-5
porcupine puffer 8 inches
hippo tang - 6 inches
Much appreciated.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
The food you are offering seem to be good quality and variety. Feeding will have to be gauged by you based on your fishes' ability to consume the food offered without leftovers sinking to the bottom or ending up in the filters. Thaw out the food, then offer a portion of it so that your fish can immediately eat everything, then offer another portion, etc., until they have completed the meal without food ever becoming waste. Many hobbyists dump in the whole meal at once resulting in food ending up in the substrate or taken into filters. As, I said, offer 2 meals a day.
Looks like your angel is developing an eye infection. You are right, garlic needs to be freshly minced, soaked in food and immediately served if it is to provide medicinal benefit. I would suggest offering one meal with the supplement I mentioned above, and one meal with the fresh garlic soaked food. The garlic is needed until the emperor's eye problem clears up and then you can discontinue that if you like.
Also, right now, I would suggest that you implement a water change every day. Just 2-3 gals in addition to the freshwater top-off you usually have to do. The water change is to address the eye bacterial infection, along with the food and supplement modifications. You want to implement this water change with minimum stress to the fish during the process. Hopefully, this will work for the angel. My thought is that the vacuuming that you are doing of waste in dead spots is likely stirring up some decayed organics which is ending up in the water column, degrading the quality of the water. While its not apparent in test readings, obviously any type of pollution can end up effecting fish and emperors are fairly susceptible to environmental issues.
Is this fish experiencing aggression at all?
Does your tank have live rock?
If the eye infection gets worse, then the fish would require treatment in a quarantine tank. Do you have one?
 

dougedoug

Member
This is a fish only tank, The emperor is usually aggressive with other fish at times, but has not been lately. No other fish are showing aggression towards him. I do not have a quarantine tank, what size would you recommend?
I have someone come in to do water changes each month. However I am capable of doing a few gallons everyday or every other day.
How much salt do I need per gallon? 4.5ounces per gallon?
Do I need to prepare the saltwater the day before and let it sit and get to room temperature?
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Mixing salt water is a bit more involved then stirring in salt into a bucket. You never want to put raw salt into a fish tank directly.
I would suggest you get a Rubbermaid kitchen size tall garbage can with a lid. Mix your saltwater following the directions on the salt you are using. You need to leave the mixing saltwater in the container at least 24 hours (48 is better) with a small powerhead to do the mix. After 12 hours, take a salinity reading using either a refractometer (preferably) or a floating hydrometer (not the plastic swing arm hydrometers which are highly inaccurate). Make adjustments to the salinity as needed. You want the final water to have mixed thoroughly. This is key as salt particles left un-dissolved and suspended in the water is extremely caustic to delicate fish membranes and internal organs.
If you are using tap water, then you may need to dechlorinate, though chlorine will usually dissipate out of water after 24 hours.
You may want to consider adding live rock over time. Live rock is an excellent natural filtration system and especially appealing as well. The micro fauna that you will receive free from the live rock will work at cleaning up the leftover organics in your system, including in the sandbed, allowing you to likely cut back, or eliminate the vacuuming you are now doing.
It is always best that you use a quarantine tank for containment as you acquire new fish. No fish store is going to make sure that your fish is healthy for you. You can purchase what appears to be a perfectly healthy fish at the store, then 3 days later your fish has ich and has contaminated your entire system. To avoid these disasters, you quarantine fish before they go into your system.
It sounds like you have an aggressive fish tank which usually means you purchase larger fish. 30 gal min. quarantine for that. The idea of the quarantine is that you are going to isolate one fish at time. There are exceptions when you may want to get a mated pair or schooling fish, but generally, one acquisition at a time is safest.
As for the emperor's situation, you would really need an established quarantine for this fish since you would be using antibiotics. Antibiotics degrade fish tank biological filters pretty fast so the safest route is to use an established system to treat with medications. Hopefully, it won't come to needing to do this with this fish.
Sounds like you have someone doing much of the tank care for your system?
 

dougedoug

Member
Monthly I have someone come in and do a 25% water change, change filter pads and one a once over on the sand. I am going to start doing this myself but I wanted to get a complete understanding of everything involved before I cut the cord.
In regards to the Angel it is only in one eye and I am guessing it is a directly related to HLLD. So I am going to start providing more nutrient food and gonna leave the Angel fish in my display tank for now. If the eye does not improve then I will get a QT setup. Could I do a 3-4 minute freshwater bath (same temp) with some medication? I have heard that can help, but I really want to limit moving any fish if its not going to provide any benefit.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
FW bathes are highly stressful for fish, and totally ineffective for bacterial infections or HLLE. They have some effectiveness in treating parasites on the fish skin, which is not at all relevant to this. Your goal in treating this fish is to provide it with good environment and quality nutrition. Added stress can and will cause rapid deterioration.
HLLE is a not a pathogen. It is more an immune syndrome due to some environmental cause. Wild fish never get HLLE. HLLE is not causing the eye infection. Some condition in the tank environment is causing both the HLLE and the eye infection.
Treating this fish will be a gradual process with gradual results. Immediately the best results is that things do not become worse.
If your maintenance person is doing heavy vacuuming of the sandbed than that could well be the problem. Sandbeds provide colonies of beneficial bacteria that functions as a natural filtration for your system. Disruption of the sand effectively kills off these beneficial colonies, and releases organic waste in to the water column.
 

reefr

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beth http:///t/393645/emperor-angel-with-hlld#post_3502675
FW bathes are highly stressful for fish, and totally ineffective for bacterial infections or HLLE. They have some effectiveness in treating parasites on the fish skin, which is not at all relevant to this. Your goal in treating this fish is to provide it with good environment and quality nutrition. Added stress can and will cause rapid deterioration.
HLLE is a not a pathogen. It is more an immune syndrome due to some environmental cause. Wild fish never get HLLE. HLLE is not causing the eye infection. Some condition in the tank environment is causing both the HLLE and the eye infection.
Treating this fish will be a gradual process with gradual results. Immediately the best results is that things do not become worse.
If your maintenance person is doing heavy vacuuming of the sandbed than that could well be the problem. Sandbeds provide colonies of beneficial bacteria that functions as a natural filtration for your system. Disruption of the sand effectively kills off these beneficial colonies, and releases organic waste in to the water column.
WELL SAID.
 

geridoc

Well-Known Member
I notice that none of the foods you are feeding contains sponge, which is a nutritional requirement for large angelfish. I feed pretty much the same mix of foods you are using, except that twice a week I give my emperor Ocean Nutrition Marine Angel mix, which contains some sponge. They don't say how much sponge is in the mix, but I have had the emperor for almost 10 years now, so it isn't hurting things, and may help.
 
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