fish scratching himself on rocks?

flobup · Mar 31, 2019

(newbie here) got this new fish, cant remember what kind it is but hes got an awesome personality deff my fav fish but he seems to like scratch himself on rocks sometimes... is this normal?

infinite0180 · Mar 31, 2019

Depends on who you ask... it means something is bothering the fish, ie a parasite infection of some sorts. Some people treat fish with meds and some people focus on feeding and lowering the amount of stress. Either way i suggest checking out the disease and treatment thread and read up so you can decide how you want to proceed... good luck!

flobup · Mar 31, 2019

Ive only noticed him doing for about 15 min yesterday, been watching him today and he hasn't done it.. he doesn't have any kinda spots on him or anything, looks normal idk maybe he just had an itch lol

ca1ore · Mar 31, 2019

Scratching is often, but not always, a sign of skin parasites. Can also be feeding mechanism, depending on the species of fish. My leopard wrasse do it occasionally. Assume you don’t QT your fish? At this point, best just to keep an eye out for other, more definitive symptoms. Don’t overreact .... not yet, at least

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flobup · Mar 31, 2019

ca1ore said:
Scratching is often, but not always, a sign of skin parasites. Can also be feeding mechanism, depending on the species of fish. My leopard wrasse do it occasionally. Assume you don’t QT your fish? At this point, best just to keep an eye out for other, more definitive symptoms. Don’t overreact .... not yet, at least .

no I don't QT.. havnt gotten a tank for it yet... do you just get a smaller tank and put a HOB filter for it?

HexaReef · Mar 31, 2019

My Clarkii does it all the time. Has for over a year(when i got him). He's fine. Not everything is disease.

flobup · Mar 31, 2019

ok good to know.... thanks

gypsyboy38 · Mar 31, 2019

I agree. It isn’t always a bad sign, but it would definitely be a good idea to watch the suspect fish to see if anything develops.

IDAN · Apr 1, 2019

flobup said:
(newbie here) got this new fish, cant remember what kind it is but hes got an awesome personality deff my fav fish but he seems to like scratch himself on rocks sometimes... is this normal?

let me guess it's Tang...
get 2 cleaning shrimps and they'll do the work in case it is parasites

flobup · Apr 1, 2019

IDAN said:
let me guess it's Tang...
get 2 cleaning shrimps and they'll do the work in case it is parasites

no its not a tang, I cant remember what it is

IDAN · Apr 1, 2019

Take a pic...

MSB123 · Apr 1, 2019

Post a picture of the fish and the tank!

flobup · Apr 2, 2019

flobup · Apr 2, 2019

He’s the one on the bottom left.

AquaLifeStudio · Apr 2, 2019

How did you come to have this tank and the inhabitants?

flobup · Apr 2, 2019

I bought the tank and fish from my LFS

AquaLifeStudio · Apr 2, 2019

I've had a small chance to look through your threads that youve posted on here and it's clear that you are over your head.

It's good that you are here on reef2reef so we can help.

Before things go really bad, and i think they are going to go really bad for this tank, you should share the following information about yourself.

What is your background with taking care of animals? Do you know anybody personally that keeps saltwater fish?

What is each and every component that you have installed on this tank?

How did you cycle the tank?

We already know that you dont have a QT system setup. How do you acclimate your fish?

What's your water temperature, salinity?

Derek Asbury · Apr 2, 2019

That fish is a picasso trigger I believe it's called and if I was you I would buy a cheap fish tank from pets mart and pull him out no matter the work involved and just to be safe pull all fish out and watch them there with meds on the ready watch the water peaks closely in the QT tank most likely have todo daily water changes to keep ammonia down but I would dose them with a copper med and bac med of some kind cause once they get the worst symptoms it may have already caused damage to there gills scratching is not good be carefull

flobup · Apr 2, 2019

definitely in over my head lol... i had no idea saltwater fish keeping was so in depth when I bought my tank and I’m tying my best to learn as I go. I have a 55 gallon tank, two kessil 160s, a 25 gallon sump with an octo 150s skimmer, a refugium with Cheto, miracle mud, live rock, and crushed coral. Also have my own RO/DI filter. My salinity is .24 and my temp is usually 75-78

flobup · Apr 2, 2019

Oh and I also have an ATO. I’m planning to go buy a QT tank today after work and will start putting fish in there before the main tank.

I cycled my tank for a month with live sand, a half peice of a jumpo shrimp and added this stuff my LFS sold me to jump start bacteria growth. Think it was called turbo start 900 or something like that.