Holes in head all over the place

This started appearing on almost all clownfish mostly the juveniles
It's so ugly the whole batch of clowns would be unsellable by my standards
 

 
My water is somewhat dirty that could be one obvious reason
The large mature broodstock on the same system does not have this issue. 
I only feed dry pellets, TDO
 
Anyone else seen this before ?

I haven't seen this before. 

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Joe do you run carbon at all on this system?  It has been implicated in causing hole in the head.  The great fall back is always do another water change to see if that helps at all.  Failing that, I'd wonder if it isn't a protozoa of some sort.
 
 

No carbon
I just checked stray voltage i get 0.2V which isnt much

I'd still try to find where the voltage is coming from.  Just one more thing to rule out.
 
Good luck!

Hope this helps:
 

Also known as: Head and Lateral Line Erosion Disease (HLLD or HLLE), Lateral Line Erosion (LLE), Lateral Line Disease (LLD).

This disease is especially common in discus fish and Oscar fish and causes large cavities and soars on the head and along the lateral line of the fish. The open wounds caused by hole in the head disease are very distinctive and makes this disease easy to discover and diagnose. If your fish has growing wounds on its head it is likely suffering from hole in the head disease. Early signs of this disease are small pits on the head of the fish. This disease often appears simultaneous with a disease called Hexamita and this has lead to these two diseases being frequently confused with each other. Hexamita attacks the intestines of the fish and can often be the cause of the hole in the head disease which has been attributed to nutritional deficiency, The two diseases are however not one and the same.

Hole in the head disease is believed to be the result of a deficiency of one or several of the following nutrients: Phosphorus, Calium, Vitamin C and Vitamin D. This deficiency can as earlier mentioned be caused by Hexamita and its effect on the digestive system but it can also be a result of poor water quality, poor diet or over filtration using chemical filtration.

Hole in the head disease is often very hard to cure, especially in its later stages, but an improved diet with more vitamins and increasing the water quality by cleaning the tank and performing more frequent water changes might help. It is also recommended to remove any chemical filtration such as active carbon filtration. Improving the diet of the fish can include adding vitamins to the diet, introducing vitamin rich flake food to the diet and removing (or at least cut down on) nutrient poor feeder fish and beef heart from the diet.

Yikes... not doesnt sound good at all. Sorry for your misfortune.
 
Do you happen to have a cephalopod, eel or other large fish that needs live food?

-Adam

That's not hole in the head

Your water was to dirty. Furan 2 and about eight weeks of clean water will take care of the problem.

Right,no HLLD.
I used to see that in my clown juvs,years ago.Never found what it was.Lesions were not deep ulcers but shallow exulcerations.

Yes my water is very bad so that must be the culprit.  I've done a few water changes already. Hoping it will sort itself out.

use framaldahide followed by prazipro or crypto pro

I'm still not done with this problem
Two bigger fish in my broodstock died recently
They had rapid breathing besides the holes in the head.
 
Could it be brook?
Joyce wilkerson wrote about one of brookynella signs as "pits in the head"
Everything written about brookynella says it kills fish within 48 hours.
My problem is dragging over 2 months and slowly taking fish down
 
The whole system has 10 pairs in it, 5 egg laying. Before i tear down everything i want to try to identify the disease and treat correctly

Have you checked for stray voltage in the system?  Long ago, I had a yellow tang that was suffering from HLLE.  At the time there were two solutions suggested by my LFS guy that I trust the most:
 
1)  Possible stray voltage.  Correct with a grounding probe.  I did confirm the stray voltage with a voltmeter, and the grounding probe did solve the problem, as shown by the voltmeter.
 
2)  Nutrition.  The suggested solution was to feed Spectrum pellets.
 
Both solutions were implemented at the time, but only solution #1 has been implemented consistently ever since.  The problem has gone away for me, and stayed away.
 
I hope this helps.
 

I checked for voltage again and i have none
As for nutrition isn't Otohime a complete feed ?
I'm raising about 100 clownfish in a stand alone tank and they have not develloped the disease. They hatched from a flower pot from the "contaminated" system. Crossing my fingers.

 
Does this slow killer disease fits Uronema Marinum?
its a systemic parasite that over take dirty aquariums. death sentence from what i read
Since then i've done a complete cleaning overhaul of the system, emptied the sump and the goo on the bottom and added filter socks.
I have some furan-2 coming in the mail that i will try
 
Heres a pic of 1 inch snowflakes that just started developping the disease in the main system

I'm 99.9% certain its Uronema Marinum
Me leaving the system get really dirty for too long must of caused a the parasite to swarm the whole system.
Instead of subjecting the fish to all kind of medication im going to try maintaining pristine water conditions and feed nutritious food frozen and dry. After the filter socks and i just added Carbon and phosban.
Since the parasite feeds on bacteria im wondering wether to stop carbon dosing
 
From advanced aquarist: http://www.advancedaquari.../aafeature1#section-16

Uronema marinum

Uronema marinum is a free-living rather than obligate parasite as it feeds on live food, dead tissue and bacteria. However, this parasite is opportunistic and, it is often found on recently captured, transported, or otherwise weakened hosts. Poor conditions and stress are believed to be factors as they negatively impact the host’s immune system. Uronema marinum infects fish within a wide temperature and salinity range and invades the internal organs in advanced stages.

Reproduction

Reproduction is by fission.

Symptoms

Early on, increased mucus production and hyperactivity may be seen as symptoms of Uronema marinuminfection. Focal de-pigmentation, ulceration and pitting of the skin, respiratory distress, lethargy, flashing, clamped fins, erratic swimming, gasping at the surface or laying at the bottom of the aquarium are symptoms. Raised scales with bloody patches (hemorrhages) can also be exhibited. These lesions can be difficult to distinguish from those exhibited with vibrio bacterial infections.

• Excess mucus production
• Hyperactivity early in infection
• Focal de-pigmentation
• Ulceration and pitting of the skin
• Respiratory distress
• Lethargy
• Clamped fins
• Gasping at the surface or sitting on the bottom
• Raised scales with bloody patches
• Flashing
• Erratic swimming

 

Treatment

It is crucial to begin treatment early before this parasite invades internal organs. Early stages of infection may be controlled with freshwater or formalin dips (Basiola and Gratzek,1992.). Some success has been reported with nitrofurazone and methylene blue (Chueng et al., 1980. Bassleer, 1983). Experimental treatments with anti-malaria drugs such as chloroquine and quinacrine hold some promise. Hydrogen peroxide can be effective against parasites on external surfaces, but it is not well tolerated by some fish. Systemic infections have a poor prognosis. Secondary bacterial infection is common. It may be wise to follow formalin or freshwater dips with a course of nitrofurazone treatment.

Definition of Terms

Osmoregulation (process that controls the salt/water balance within fish) Pronounced: os·mo·reg·u·la·tion. The regulation of osmotic pressure. The control of the concentration of dissolved substances in the cells and body fluids of an animal.
 

 
Sorry, I can flat out say its not nutrition.  The some of the largest clown hatcheries around use Otohime and they have no issues.  I'll send Chad over to check this out, get a pro on the task

This isn't uronema; Uronema is a parasite that manifests itself completely differently (and also can be quite fatal).
 
I also wouldn't utilize the info posted by Westhooligan as that info merges both Freshwater "Hole in the Head" and Marine Lateral Line Errosion / HOle in the head as if they are the same thing; couldn't be further from the truth.

I am more inclined to go with the comments regarding stray voltage and dirty water.

 
Are you checking for both AC as well as DC stray voltage?  For AC, are you checking with one probe well connected to your AC ground?  Are you checking with all of your lights and other equipment on (in my case, it was the ballasts for my T5 actinics that was causing the stray voltage; with those lights off, I showed no stray voltage)?

I have seen this before.  It was the result of poor water quality and the scarring never went away.  Always test your water quality before making assumptions.  In my career, I have learned that the majority of issues have been directly related to water quality.  It's best to keep the water as clean as possible or you open the door for infection.  Clownfish are very hardy, but prolonged stress can lead to much worse things and you will eventually have a disease outbreak that could potentially wipe out everything.  Just maintain better standards and keep feeding them the same way.  I would also advise you to keep your broodstock separate from your nursery fish.  Keep your systems separate to avoid cross contamination.  The voltage thing intrigues me and I am very interested to see how that plays out.   

thank you all for your input
I run a algea scrubber in combination with vodka dosing. I thought it would allow me to run the system without water changes save for siphoning piles of junks.
I realise I was delusional.
It works on a 55g softies tank i have run for 2 years without water changes but it doesnt see the same kind of feeding.
 

 
every other day i pluck out patches of algea like these:

 
 

 
 
I tested AC in that manner. I'm going to look for DC testing if i can
 

 
The problem here is that if you're not doing water changes, then certain elements are being stripped out of the system by the turf scrubber and NOT being replenished.  So it may not be "Dirty" water so much "exhausted" water...

 
Guys I beg for another minute of your lives
Turns out there is something funny going on with voltage
Please have a look at this vid and tell me if im testing correctly. I test a tank on the rack both on and off flow and getting the same reading (wtf?). I'm using a rotifer culture as comparison.
 

I do see what you mean, but gee, I don't know...  there are too many things that I still *don't* know about your setup.  My knee-jerk theory to explain what you are showing in the video is that perhaps the stray voltage is coming up from your sump via residual water and/or salt in the drain lines.
 
My suggestions are twofold:
 
1)  Turn off each electrical thing in the system / area one at a time, and test until the stray voltage goes away.  Once it is gone, the last thing you turned off is the source.  In my case, it was the ballasts for my T5 lights on my 210 display, and they were injecting the stray voltage via EMI through the air -- without any direct connection to the tank water!
 
2)  More importantly, simply get a grounding probe, install it correctly, and verify that it has solved the problem (which is what I did, in my case).
 
I hope this helps.  And again, we're not entirely sure that whatever stray voltage you have is the source of your problems....
 
By the way, I'm having a hard time reading the units and/or decimal places in your digital display.  How many volts AC are you reading in the video?
 

Keep in mind that there may be two things throwing stray voltage so be sure if you find one cause it is the only one.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

 
It's 0.4 V at peak. Enough to harm fish?
I already found about 0.25 coming from the return pump (centrifugal poseidon ps4), the rest i cant find yet.
And yeah im getting a grounding probe tomorow.
 

I don't think that is a whole lot of voltage.  Probably not enough to cause issues (I had something like 15-20 VAC!).  Still, the grounding probe certainly won't hurt anything.

I used a speaker line to ground it temporarily. Meter reads -0.01v im going to assume its working
 
Theres two school of thoughts about stray voltage
One says ground probes are bad because they allow current to flow thus electrifying the tank
   

I agree with Matt regarding the "exhausted" water.  I also want to add that too much algae in a system, whether micro or macro, can cause problems.  If you have too much algae, they tend to release secondary metabolites and without the use of carbon filtration, these metabolites build up over time and slowly depreciate the system.  The plants are also going through a growth and decay process, which will diminish the water quality.  By simply performing water changes regularly, you should be in better shape. 

Things that happened since i added the ground probe:
1 day after: breeding darwin pair i acquired 2 months ago laid its first nest in my system
2 days later: female ocellaris that was 20 days late on her spawn finnaly laid
Could be totally coincidental.
Hopefully next i will be reporting healings of lesions

This article was mentioned on the Reef Threads podcast today: http://www.reefaddicts.co...-for-Stray-Electricity

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Ok, i'm an electrical dummy
Turns out i was testing for DC the whole time.


So for VAC (AC 120v) when the system was running it barely registered 0.4 volts
I then unplugged my three pronged return pump and it spiked between 60-17 volts!
The return pump was acting as a grounding probe all along!
 
The culprits were two homedepot 48" and 36"  fluorescent fixtures wired with twin prongs by yours truly.
The fixtures didnt touch the tanks but it did touch my stand which is all metal i don't know if that plays a role. Wish i built my own out of wood now.  
 
Looking forward to reporting good news
 

All i can say is that just move your fish to a different aquarium. Then drain the tank, clean, scrub, preaty much take everything out of the aquarium and then get new stuff. That will only help the previous fish.

Is Ammonia poisonning possible ?
I think my cycle became out of whack for some reason. I added a large tunze powerhead into the sump to create movement in the pile of liverock and things are improving. I can tell the vodka dosing is working better than it ever did by the skimmer filling up
 3x faster.
The damage appears to be non reversible but the head pits are healing/scaring. Every now and then a juvenile clown will die with no apparent disease on them. Internal damage from long exposure to ammonia?
 
After reading the thread about kaldness I ordered a cubic foot of it. It makes so much sense and makes liverock look like an outdated dinosaur for processing waste.

 
This female was doing fine and spawning regularly then pits appeared on the forehead for a few months now and no spawning
Today i noticed a bloody patch on the right side of her face. This is usually the death sentence.
 
I'm taking down the whole system and will keep only two of my prized pairs (black snowflakes, picassos) out of 12 pairs 
 
I've tried pretty much every medications so far prazipro, paraguard, chloroquine phosphate, formalin dips
I don't think i've used copper yet as this always seemed like an internal infection/parasite and fish death occurs after weeks/months of degeneration
 
Someone suggested i feed my fish with praziquantel(prazipro) not sure how to do that

Can you get live adult brine shrimp?  Feed the Prazi to the BS and then feed the BS to the fish.  I've also made homemade medicated food by making a basic frozen mash with gelatin and mix the medication into the food.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

 
Dr G's sells 3 types of medicated frozen foods and one of them has Praziquantel in it.  I haven't tried it but I was impressed with what they had to say when I talked to them about it at MACNA.
 
http://www.drgsmarineaqua...edicated-fish-food.cfm

I heard of it but no medicated reef food is available in canada. The pond guys however have some, koi food ect.
I made a gelatin food mash with metronidazole and some liquid prazipro, will report on that later