behavior question

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mak1969

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
40
Location
Lafayette, Indiana
The best way to describe it is skimming off of surfaces. I have seen both my 4 striped damsel and my six lined wrasse doing this. Not at the same time. I was just wondering if any one else has seen this or knows why they do this. :?
 
you mean like just before an ich breakout? Cause that's what it sounds like to me.
 
well, ich is a parasitic infection usually observed through small pin-like white specs all over the fish. It spreads fast and can lead to death if untreated. It is a rapidly spreading infection that once present in an aquarium, can spread to all other inhabitants very quickly.

There's a couple of ways to deal with it but the preferred way is to quarentine the fish you have that are infected...which will most likely be all of them....and administer hyposalinity treatment(aslo just called "hypo"). This is basically when you lower the SG of your quarantine water slowly(over the course of several days) to about 1.008-1.010. At this SG, the parasites will die after about 4 weeks of this treatment. This is the prefered way because it's much less stressful on the fish, it's natural, and it's success rate is really high.

Your first step will be to set up a QT(quarantine) tank and then start hypo treatment. Depending on how many fish you have, this could be a difficult task. Please remember that lowering the SG in your main tank will most likely kill off inverts and corals.

Here's an article about setting up a qt tank:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/article_view.php?faq=2&fldAuto=17

also, if you need more info on ich, just use the search function. Ich has been covered at length on this forum. One last thing, be aware of quick fix medications and chemicals. Many have poor success rates and will stress the fish. The only chemical that is proven to work well is copper.
 
I've checked the fish carefully and haven't found any spots on them.
They all seem very healthy. I read in my aquarium book that they may scratch themselves on rocks if they have a skin worm. I can't remember the name but it would resemble a leech under a microscope. I set up a tank last night and will put everyone in just to be safe.
Thanks for the help.
 
mak1969 said:
I've checked the fish carefully and haven't found any spots on them.
They all seem very healthy. I read in my aquarium book that they may scratch themselves on rocks if they have a skin worm. I can't remember the name but it would resemble a leech under a microscope. I set up a tank last night and will put everyone in just to be safe.
Thanks for the help.

rubbing is just one of the first signs of ich. It isn't always visible when they're rubbing. But 9out of 10 times, it will later on develope into Ich. It can take up to 4 weeks for c. irritans to become visible.
 
So, if I treat the fish for ich in the quarantine tank will I still have ich in my main tank? If so what do i do about that.
 
yes, your main tank needs to remain fallow (fishless) for 4-6 weeks in order for all the ich parasites to die off.
 
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