Well...here's the thing about it. I have been in contact with Bob Smith at Ecosystem, and he says the same thing I'll tell you here -- we're not sure WHY the ecosytem filtration setup cures HLLE, but it does. This is the third fish we've cured of this disease, but the purple tang is by far the most rapid and dramatic improvement.
As an experiment, we set up a 15 gallon hex tank with a small ecosystem setup and nothing else. We added a flame angel we were given with bad HLLE. In about 3 months, we gave him back to the owner completely cured. I'm not sure if its the mud, but that would be my guess.
To answer your question Beth, its really nothing other then placing the fish in an ecosystem filtrated tank. I wish I could claim some magic touch, but thats it!
We have a quaratine/hyposalinity tank that we use for new arrivals and/or sick fish, and we put a small homemade ecosystem filter on it. We haven't lost anyone since we started doing it, I highly recommend it.
Great stuff!
