Need Help with Adult Emperor Angel Please

[clarksz06]

I have a adult emperor in a 180 gallon. He is the dominant fish in the tank. There is a yellow and atlantic tang with him.
My question is I think he my be showing early signs of lateral line errosion. There are a few small holes near his nostrals. Also some markings along the edge of his gill covers.
I feed a variety of marine seaweed selects every day. Formula 1 and 2 and Krill in the evenings. I let there frozen food soak in Selcon.
Today I bought a titanium ground probe, just in case.
So is there any other thoughts? Could the recent stress of him having ich about a month ago of caused this? I used copper to get rid of it.
Could copper cause errosion in just a month of treated water? I have done a 35 gallon water change since, added loads of carbon and turned the skimmer back on.
Any help or suggestions would be a huge help.
Thanks everyone.

 

[beth]

With HLLE their can be a varity of causes. When I see hobbyists here talk about it as a problem with their fish I usually also see one of the things that is believed to cause HLLE. Yes, I believe the copper could well have been the problem. What are your water readings and how long have you had this fish? You might want to not use carbon constantly as it also is believed to be a cause for this disease. You can use carbon occassionally.

 

[clarksz06]

The copper has only been in the tank for a month and i have since done the first of many water changes to come.
The carbon I just added lately to help remove the copper.
I have had the fish 2-3 months and he is very fat and doing extremely well, except for these few markings, that I really want to make sure don't ruin this beautiful fish.

 

[clarksz06]

Any other thoughts anyone?

 

[beth]

I still think copper. The point is to try and address the issue on all front. Don't use copper on Angels. Use the carbon only to polish water occassionally, not constantly. A day of carbon cleaning once a month is good enough. Check on the angel's diet and be sure that you are addressing its needs. Soak food in zoecon for 1/2 hr in refrigerator before serving. Zoecon has Omega3 fatty acid which is an immune boaster and is known to assist repair in instances of HLLE. Use Grounding probe in tank and in sump if you have one. Keep nitrates down to trace levels.

 

[clarksz06]

I bet your right. The fish looked fine until the copper had time to do some damage. I was at a point that I had no choice but to use copper and kill the ich. The fish would of certainly died.
I will do water changes every 2 weeks and keep adding Selcon to its food.
Do you think that any marks from the copper will go away will time??
Thanks

 

[beth]

As I said, copper is know to cause this problem with angels and tangs. These fish should not be exposed to copper. I have seen some horrible cases of HLLE be cured.
Lets work at it and see what we can do. What is your nitrate level? Also, don't use carbon all the time.

 

[clarksz06]

Nitrates are showing very low.
As far as the copper goes, I didn't have a choice a month ago. It was either dose it or watch hundreds of dollars in fish die, so I did what I had to. I gave them 2 weeks with the ich to fight it off with other means but it just got to a point that it was going to kill everything within a few days.
I have had the carbon in the tank for a week now, I usually don't use carbon at all. Do you think I should tank it out now or let it work a bit longer at removing more copper.
I forgot to tell you that I added a Poly Filter pad, which is made to remove medications. The pad turned dark blue to show that it was removing the copper. I just today added another poly filter pad to see how much more I can get out of the water.
I have a turbo floater 1000 multi skimmer on the tank. Will it remove much of the copper?
Thanks again.

 

[beth]

Clarks, I am not the judgemental type unless someone comes on the forum constantly asking for adise and never takes it. Then that does get me and others irked. While you have done some things that may have caused this problem my only purpose in quizzing you is to get to the bottom of the problem so we can try to correct it. Now I see that the copper treatment is likely the problem. I am not blaming you. This particular fish just had a sensitivity to copper. With HLLE you have to probe all possibilities so you can try and eliminate the problem from your system and treat the fish. Can you tell me what your nitrate reading is? Trace? Zero, what?
At this point, continue using the carbon to get the copper out, then discontinue. Use a skimmer as well, and water changes. Were you treating ich? What type of copper were you using? Will you be using a QT in the future?

 

[clarksz06]

My Nitrates are at 20 ppm. Not to bad. I'm going to do another 35 gallon water change tomorrow. I'm planning on doing one water change an week of 35 gallons for a month to 6 weeks. And then backing it off to every 3 weeks. Unless you have a better plan.
I was using mardel copper to treat the ich.
The skimmer lately has been pulling a lot of crap out of the tank, that can't hurt.

 

[beth]

With tangs the "natural" you can go the better. Getting the copper out and then cutting down the use of cabon I think will certainly help. Also, I have found that where tangs are concerned that they have little tolerance for nitrates.
I think you are on the right track, and should proceed with addressing the areas we've talked about. Hopefully this will start to improve the problem. Is your tank FO then? Will you ever add LR?

 

[clarksz06]

My 180 is fish only with 60-70 lbs of live rock. I'm planning on getting another 30 lbs. or so more, before the tank is all done.
The fish currently living in the tank are the Adult emperor angel, yellow tang, atlantic blue tang, sohal tang, niger trigger, small fuzzy dwarf lion, ocellaris clown, heniocus butterfly, 6 green chromis damsels, and a lawnmower blenny.
The tank is very active and everyone looks great, just this small angel problem.
My 55 gal. is reef with a nice assortment of fish, soft, LPS, and a few SPS corals.
I will take your advice on the big tang and give it time, thanks for your help.

 

[beth]

So you used copper in a tank with LR?

 

[clarksz06]

Yes, it had live rock. I'm surprised that the copper didn't kill much of the coraline algae.

 

[beth]

Its more the living creatures in the rock that got killed then the algae. This isn't good news for setting a a future reef tank.

 

[clarksz06]

I never planned on it becoming a reef. Its a fish only tank. It has 2 160 watt VHO's, which wouldn't be near enough to support most corals I would want. Not to mention the cost of a calcium reactor and chiller.
Thats why I have the 55 reef right across the room from it. Its big enough I can have fun with yet not so big that its going to empty my pocket book.
Plus I have to leave a little $$ for road racing my Z06 this october.

 

[rjmang]

Clarks,
How is your angel looking. I had to introduce a Hippo tang to my tank before the 3 week Quarantine due to the fact it looked like he was going to die in the QT. Of course he brought ick in with him.

 

[clarksz06]

Actually, I think the HLLE is slowly getting worse. I'm doing everything in the books to make it go away. It might just take a lot of time.
I'm still sticking it out though.

 

[toughguy80]

My dwarf angel had HLLE and I did all the same things you're now trying. While they seemed to help a little it never really cleared it up. A few weeks ago I intruduced a cleaner shrimp into my tank and noticed the remaining spots gone. This could just be chance, Beth might know more on if the shrimp would help? If you do decide to try it, don't add him to your display with the copper, it'll kill him. Also, he might only be a "quick fix", and once put back in display the angel could get HLLE again. Just a suggestion.
PS. Beth, what happened to Terry B? I haven't seen him on here in forever?

 

[clarksz06]

Yeah, thats pretty much impossilbe. Thats like saying that adding another fish could make the HLLE go away.
Cleaner shrimp are good for cleaning a fish of any possible parisites and eating left over food, thats about it.
Thanks anyways