Please look at my Hippo

[majakarot]

My tang recently found a new hiding spot in the rocks and immediately started showing up with injuries, I am assuming it injured itself on the rocks, I rearranged them but I am worried about my tang... I believe it may have ich on the injuries... if in fact they are injuries at all and not some disease... I plan on making some garlic drops for my flake as soon as i get to the store, please let me know what it looks like to you and what you would recommend.
thank you
also, the pics don't look exactly like the real thing, the flash somehow doesn't show the whiteness that I see under the lights

 

[scsinet]

This doesn't look like injuries to me.
Hippos are reclusive fish, and they know how to jam themselves into rocks without getting hurt.
What are your water parameters? Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate/pH/Temp/Alk/SG
How is his breathing? Is it faster than normal?
Has his behavior changed at all?

 

[yimmy]

I have a baby hippo tang, he hides and everynow and then he will get small scratches. Yours looks more to be something stress related. If it is injury your doing the right thing but supplementing the food. Just make sure your trates,trites and ammonia are all down low. Hope this helps.
Jimmy

 

[hipsterism]

Originally Posted by majakarot
... I believe it may have ich on the injuries... if in fact they are injuries at all and not some disease...
Based on your pictures that is not ick. It appears to be some sort of bacterial infection. Bacteria are typically unicellular, microscopic, prokaryotic organisms that reproduce by binary fission. So your injury theory is probably the right one with an infection that has followed. You should check you water quality, and if it is out of line correct it.

By the way, that is a good looking fish :happyfish

 

[majakarot]

Thanks for the continued help, here are new test results:
nitrite/ammonia--0
nitrate--between 10 and 15 (normal for my tank...working on it)
ph--8.2
temp--79 (I did raise it from 78 in the last couple of days)
sg--1.024-1.025 (this is a little high for my tank as i usually keep it at 1.023...working on that as we speak)
the tang is acting mostly normal, eating well and swimming around ducking into the rocks, the only things different i have noticed is that it presented itself to the skunk cleaner and it is not chasing the chromis like normal
I am not sure about the breathing... looks normal to me but i've never paid attention before
I have recently added some corals and have been moving around the rock work quite a bit lately... could that be enough to stress out my tang?
thank you so much, i am very concerned about my fish
(if this matters, he has been in this tank for several years without an incident like this)

 

[scsinet]

I'd be inclined to leave your fish alone and see if it gets any worse before acting.
Hippos are nervous fish... pulling him out may stress him more than his injuries/illness.

 

[yimmy]

I agree with net, I would leave it unless it starts looking worse than that.

 

[majakarot]

started garlic soaked feedings, tang ate both flake and marine cuisine (some kind of meat) both soaked in a garlic/tank water bath...
I was told that I should also mention that yesterday the area on its chest was swollen, as if something was under the skin (infection?) before it opened up...
my current best guess is possibly small scratches that got some kind of bacterial infection.
I will continue with the garlic feedings and i brought my sg back down to 1.023.
this is a long shot, but could any coral sting it enough to start these infections? (it beats on the corals sometimes)
thank you for the continued support

 

[yimmy]

What kind of fish are in the tank with it...it could be bite marks...my LN bit my finger (thought it was food) and I had something that looked about like that.

 

[majakarot]

fish:
green chromis
tiger jawfish
bicolor blenny
firefish
ocellaris clowns--these are the only things that fight with my tang-- it thinks that squeezing in under the hairy mushrooms that my clowns are hosting is a good place to rest... they usually just fight with their tails tho, although i did see the female leave a bite mark on the male clown once, but it didn't look like this.
thanks again

 

[yimmy]

o those are all small fish so I doubt they would do that... I was looking for more of a puffer or trigger in their. I think that they're just scrapes that got a bit infected.