Something is wrong

My royal gramma has been scratching himself against the sandbed for about a month or so. I thought he's gonna get ich at first, so I watched him closely for a while and nothing happened, but he didn't stop scratching. It doesn't happen too often with what I noticed. He does it (sometime) when I have my hand in the upper portion of the tank to rearrange the corals.

I am thinking that he might be stressed out, but it's been more than a month and he's more comfy about me being around. I don't know...is he sick and is battling some viruses?

Thanks!
GKW

 

As I understand it scratching can be stress related, but it is more likely a parasite of some sort. That being said if the fish is not showing any signs of parasites I would probably just leave him alone and see if he works it out for himself. If its stress related doing something like a freshwater dip is just going to stress him out more.

 

Do you have pest algae growing in the tank? Sometimes it makes the skin itchy. I think it may have something to do with water quality, too many organics or what not.

 

I don't have any pest algae and the water par. are ok w/ nitrate being 5 ppm. 24/7 skimming.

It might be stressed out because of the lawnmower, he always stealing his cave.

Thansk!

 

Keep an eye on him closely, I have one and he has gotten sick twice on me and had to be quaratine twice. The Royal Gramma is a very nervous fish and I have notice that when it feels stress with new additions or me cleaning the tank or moving the rocks, it wll start twitching and scratching on the rocks or gravel and later develope a white cotton over the one eye. I had to quarantine and treat with meds. In my nano it was the aggressor and in the 120 gal it hides all the time with the same fish as in the nano!

 

Yeah, he had a cloudy eye before too. Luckily, I left him alone cause he was getting better and recovered from it in a week or so. He has not been twitching, only scratching on the sandbed...not on the rocks. I hope he will fight whatever it is bother him off (hopefully, it's not me ).

Thanks for the info!