lateral line erosion

[chatcher]

hi a couple of months ago my lfs gave me a regal tang (paracanthurus hepatus) that had lle they said they couldnt sell it and knew i had been keeping salt for some time now so they asked if i wanted him and i took him after quarentine i placed him in a 55 with three other fish my question is the books i have state recovery is possible but do not state whether or not the skin will return to normal or if they will remain scared or the amount of time for a recovery have any of you dealt with this before as of yet he still looks the same as the day he came home and its been quite some time now any help will be greatly app


ps my tanks are all set up old school (been doing this for awhile now and still scared to change and why mess with success) undergravel with cc and powerheads penguin 330 and hang on skimmer and uv filter let me know if this set up may have anything to do with the slow(very) recovery

[reefrunner69]

I have seen many products that claim to reverse HLLE, I've never seen one that was consistantly successful. IMO, HLLE is caused by a number of factors, one being water quality and diet. I think using an UGF is going to make it difficult to keep the water quality high enough for recovery. What are you maintenance habits and what do you feed the tang? One thing that I have seen that has been helpful in HLLE recovery is to soak the fish food in a supplament high in HUFAs, like selcon.

[chatcher]

maitenance includes a monthly 25-30% water change with tap water that is treated with kordons amquel+ diet consists of life line herbivore and carnivore ff also flake and occasional brine
sorry for my ignorance but what are HUFAs
i have only known about this site for a while and i am slowly learning how outdated my methods of keeping are but the tank i put the tang in has been set up for 10 years now with no major catastrophes so i never really looked in to any thing else wasnt broke so i didnt try to fix it in your opinion kevin what would be the best fix for my filtration and do you know of a site the speaks on conversion as i wouldnt know how to switch it over i do have two other tanks (another 55 and a 20) but i am not sure that i could take the fish from this tank and intermingle them with the fish in the others as the are much smaller and fear the trigger that is in the tank with the tang would bully them not to mention the maroon clown is somewhat of a bully

thanks for the help
chris

[reefrunner69]

maitenance includes a monthly 25-30% water change with tap water that is treated with kordons amquel+ diet consists of life line herbivore and carnivore ff also flake and occasional brine

I would use RO water, unless you know your tap water is very pure (some is...most aren't). The lifeline herbivore is still mostly meat, with some green food thrown in for coloring. The fish love it....but it's not that spectacular a food IMO. Try foods that have green algae as their main ingredient, also feed strips of Nori for the fish to munch on all day long.

sorry for my ignorance but what are HUFAs

Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids

As for your tank, the UGF is certainly contributing to some wate rquality issues, how much that is a determining factor in the recovery of your tang...is anyones guess. Is there LR or base rock in ths tank?

[chatcher]

no live rock just tufa and i have looked for nori in the past and have never been able to find it looked in every grocery in the area

[chatcher]

alos could i add live rock to the tank in its current situation and would it be beneficial

[Smonkey15]

nori you can either buy at the lfs like i did. or look in the foreign foods section of the grocery store. nori is the stuff they use for sushi. at least one grocery store in your area should have it.

[edison9114]

From recent experience, I would check for stray voltage. Used to have persistent HDLE problems. Grounded my tank, problems went away.

[Smonkey15]

how do you ground a tank? because my tang got hlle when i put him in my quarantine tank so i think that i might have some stray voltage in my quarantine.

[WarOrks15]

with one of the grounding rods. it is like titanium and then it is pluged in to the ground outlet