Kole tang disease

[ALreefer]

I recently added a Kole tang to my tank. It was doing great but yesterday when I came home I noticed it frantically darting back and forth in the tank and the barbs on its tail were extended and noticed a vertical scratch on one side of its body. Today the barbs are still extended and it looks as thought the skin around the barbs may be deteriorating. Could this be fin rot? The fins themselves look fine, and other than the scratch on its body and the tail barbs I see no other lesions. It hides whenever I get close to the tank so I have not been able to get a picture yet. It does not seem aggressive toward any other tank mates and none show signs of aggression towards it. It does appear to be eating normally. Water parameters are:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 10
Nitrite - 0
Phosphate - 0
Kh - 12 dkh
Ph - 7.9
Calcium - 420

Other fish in the tank are 2 false clowns, 1 diamond goby, 1 bangai cardinal, 1 foxface. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ALreefer]

I forgot to add, the day before I noticed this I added a small purple hydnophora frag and a small yellow scroll cup.

 

[ALreefer]

Here is the best picture I could get. Its tail does not seem to be getting worse, but it is not getting better either. It is not swimming as fanatically as it was either. Thanks for any advise.

 

[leebca]

For the time being, just monitor the fish. Report if it appears to be getting worse. If it does, provide a close up, high quality photo for us.

It would be my first impression that the fish had a very bad experience with a tank mate or rock. Was the Tang quarantined first, by you, before being added to the tank? How did the fish look before it was added to the tank?

 

[opiea1c]

My Kole's has had similar things happen to and appear on it just never that big, they really like to see how tight of a fit they can make going full speed between the live rock and occasionally these this tend to happen, make sure you are enriching it diet with vitamins and it SHOULD heal up in a matter of days (at least thats how mine works) mine also tends to get stung by my hammer coral from time to time as well

 

[opiea1c]

i also have a cleaner shrimp that cleans cleans him nightly so that may be a an investment to look into if you get lucky like i did that is

 

[ALreefer]

Time for an update. One side is nearly completely healed and the other side is looking better except for one thing. The barb looks like it may have broken loose which kind of worries me. The wound itself looks like it is healing. I did not quarantine unfortunately. The fish looked great before I added it to my tank. I watched it for 3 weeks at my LFS and did not get it until it was eating good and showed no signs of illness. I will update again next week. Thanks for the help.