The Dreaded HLLE

So I was feeding the tank the other week, the usual quick head count of fish, then stir and dump food in, before moving on to other things like various fluid levels etc and noticed my regal tang had a circular "lesion" looking thing near his eye. It was almost perfectly circular/oval and didn't have any ragged edges and was a bit discolored, kind of greyish compared to the vivid blue coloring he normally is. I thought it kind of odd and posted on Canreef. After I did, I thought to go down and have a closer look at the fish. When I finally got a good look at the other side, I had my diagnosis. HLLE or Head and Lateral Line Erosion.  Total bummer :(

Jeez I thought I was safe using Kent carbon. I've used it for...well, years really. I can't even remember a time when I didn't use it. I have it running in a phosban reactor. However, lately I've been lazy about clearing out the fines on startup. I don't rinse it, never have, but I usually let the first gallon or two of flowthrough go into a bucket and dump it before letting  it flow into the sump. I haven't been doing that for awhile.

I looked back through some photos (the last photo I had was AUGUST!! crazy!) and sure enough, you can see the beginnings of it.

I have some photos from June but they're pretty terrible. I can't see any signs of it starting then but then the pits might be pretty small. He's a fast mover so the shots are kind of blurry. I'd say sometime between June and August was the start of it.  I have no idea what I did differently in that time, although I'd say I did less maintenance than ever and likely it was the bad husbandry with the carbon.  I've been coating everything I feed in Selcon so hopefully that does the trick and he heals up or at least it stops the progression.

Other than that, not much to report. My bulbs still haven't arrived, they're waiting for some backordered stuff to be shipped with it. I have high hopes for these new bulbs and my SPS coloration. Its gonna be magic I tells ya! Magic!! ;)