Reed,
There are some holes/gaps in the feeding. The soaks are not as good as encapsulating the vitamins and fats. When you put the soaked algae into the aquarium, the soaked-up supplements dissolve into the aquarium water in a minute to three. After that, the fish are just eating regular algae and not getting the supplements.
Buy different algae brands (Not just Julian) and rotate them. The different colors are good choices for these fishes, although a Yellow and/or Brown should be accepted by them now and then, too. The reason for the brand rotation is that not all algae is collected and processed the same. The variety will help provide different and varying quantities of trace elements and nutrients.
Your mush is deficient, sorry. Not enough
whole foods. Have you read the stickies in Reef Frontiers? Here is an updated post with an attachment Table to make it easier:
http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine...nutrition.html
I would suggest the following changes to the mush:
Skip the whole shrimp -- replace with whole sea krill (1/2 inch long size, frozen fish food).
Add up to 1% by weight Spirulina powder
Skip the nori, mussels, and cod
Rinse all in RO/DI or distilled water
Add vitamins and supplements to mush in blender
The first two mush preps should contain extra Vitamins A and
stabilized Vitamin C
I would add a binder (agar agar) and gel the mush together and feed in small, bite-sized pieces once a day.
Now, the above food has
encapsulated supplements and the vitamins you think the fish are getting are now for sure ingesting them.
1 feeding a day of algae on clip
1 feeding a day of the mush to all fish
1 feeding a day of frozen supplemented brine shrimp, mysid shrimp, or plankton.
1 feeding a month of pellet
1 feeding a month of flake
5 feedings a month of the frozen variety foods that do not contain land products -- These can replace the frozen supplemented b.s., mysid, feedings.
The algae on a clip feeding can be just after the mush feeding or just after the frozen feeding -- that is, you don't need to feed 3 times a day.
The bio-load is maxed out. I'd use snails instead of hermit crabs, but that's just me. It's just the Tang shouldn't be there. That is a source of stress. This is space stress and can lead to a variety of issues. Stressors are complicated and aquarists don't really see the results of them all, but they take their toll on reduced life and unhealthy fish and the HLLE is the sign of reduced health. If the Percs are mated, then they want more space and are space stressed too.
Lastly, the aquarium is getting old. I would perform some trace element additions to the water in between water changes, as recommended in the above link I provided until at least the fish return to their natural appearance.
I think the main HLLE fostering stressor is nutrition. You've not done a bad job, just perhaps not as thorough at getting the supplements into the fish. There are some gelled frozen formulas you can use as the frozen alternatives, but if your mush is up to snuff, it should be a daily feed along with some algae. Vary the other feeding with encapsulated and gelled and whole frozen products.
The fish will not likely recover from the HLLE even if you take the above nutritional steps, until the space stress has been addressed, IMO.
Hope this helps.
LEE
