Help! Flame Angel missing flesh

I

IThinkItsDeadJim

New member
All,

So I brought this guy home from AquaPros on Fri. Over the last two days, a solid white spot (not raised) appeared on its head. Today I come home and it looks like a chunk of skin is missing and part of a dorsal fin bone is exposed. This is a established 50 gallon reef with flourishing zoas, frog spawn, anemone, chalice, across, urchin, and two onyx. Nothing looks sick or I'll. I've watched him for a few hours each night, hasn't been crashing into anything or scratching. View attachment 14590Thoughts?
 
Also he swims around, ducks into the rock when spooked, nibbled at whatever he is eating off the rock, but so far has not eaten the mysis, brine, spectrum, or chlorella
 
Wow, it appears like it crashed into something, doesn't it?

Could be HITH, but when I've seen HITH on Angels, it was more around their eyes.
 
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MJ that's what ibwas hoping happend honestly. But it has just gotten worse. Really got concerned after the not eating deal. No other discoloration or anything except for the hole in the head
 
that doesn't look like HITH to me ....that looks like a flesh wound. any signs of your onyx showing aggression towards their new tank mate?
 
That does not look like hith, and it wouldn't appear like that in a matter of only days. You say the spine in his fins are showing? Imo, this is some kind of bacterial infection, not hith.
 
The only other thing I've heard of is a quite rare problem. After a lot of research a few distributors know of it and they call it "face eating disease." I had a butterfly whos face just slowly disolved until bone was exposed and it died a few days later. Several fish from the same shipment had the problem. I could never find anything more specific on it or anything in and vet text on the problem.
 
All, first and foremost, thank you! I just got done going through about 30 different forums. It looks like this is from crashing into rocks with the lights being off as he hasn't learned the layout of the tank yet. I sat about 20 feet away from the tank and the Clowns and Angel essentially ignore each other. Another possibility is the urchin spooning him while he sleeps causing him to thrash either into the urchin or rock he is sleeping. Will need to dose with medication to avoid secondary infection from an open wound.
 
IThinkItsDeadJim said:
I will look more into the face eating disease as none of the forums or articles mentioned that.
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I spent a lot of time trying to find more info. It took talking to an LFS who imports a lot and he knew of it from his contacts. I never saw one forum post on it anywhere from hobbists. Good luck either way.
 
mine just disappeared also. Probably a 5'' fish. Maybe they are hanging out together somewhere. I dunno how I loose 5+" fish in my tank. It's happened mupltple times. Never find a body.
 
IThinkItsDeadJim said:
Hopefully my Flame just has the same navigation skills as Stevie Wonder driving in traffic.
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I heard stevie wonder is not even fully blind. It's all a big gimmick to make more money. I heard on the radio going to work that someone threw him something (I'm not sure if it was a mic or something else) and he caught it! I believe he's only partially blind, but he made it seem like he was fully blind.
 
Joe5688 said:
mine just disappeared also. Probably a 5'' fish. Maybe they are hanging out together somewhere. I dunno how I loose 5+" fish in my tank. It's happened mupltple times. Never find a body.
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Man i just seen it not lobg ago . Wellmaybe was while ago lol
 
Maybe u have a pistol shrimp or rouge crab thats munching on him at night that u dont know about
 
It is with sad news that I must announce that Mr. Flame is no longer with us. My phone camera distorts when zoomed in all the way, but two holes in front of the dorsal fin that seemed pretty deep were found under magnifying lens and light. The open wound did not have any loose flesh around it like a tear would from an abrasion. The two holes were at the center of the white spot. Looking like HITH
 
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