saw danio rub on gravel a few times...

[rubysoho]

i watch my fish a lot becuase they are in a main part of my apartment. just now i noticed one of my danios rub against my gravel twice, and a few times against my (useless) magnetic glass cleaner. i remember reading somewhere that this rubbing can be the start of either a fungus or bacterial (can't remember which) infection. there are no white spots, and its scales/coloring all look normal. the temp in my tank is 75-76 degreed, and the parameters are nitrATE 0, nitrITE 0, ammonia 0, and pH 7.4. nobody new has been added in the past two weeks, and the danio was the first fish i got about 6 months ago.

what else should i keep an eye out for? the rubbing isn't constant, and it may have just been a fluke, but i want to make sure the danio and everyone else is going to be ok.

 

[rubysoho]

i think it was a fluke... i watched my danio pretty closely, and it hasn't repeated the rubbing.

 

[QTOFFER]

I would keep an eye on the danio for signs of gill flukes (rapid breathing, sluggishness) and ich (white spots).

It's likely that your fish was just foraging around for food. Even though they're supposed to be top dwellers, my danios would spend at least 50% of their time near the bottom, picking around the rocks and substrate. They were also obsessively interested in whatever my cory cats were doing.

 

[rubysoho]

ok, so it def. was not a fluke... i just watched the danio and it was rubbing its left lower-front side on the gravel, and even once on another fish (spread of inection?...grr...). no slowlness, and in the danios brief moments of pausing, i could not find any white spots. i am suppose to be going away for the weekend, and i dont want this to spread to my other fish... i dont have a QT tank (biggest mistake of all newbies i think), would a large bucket suffice? i know that isn't the best option, but i dont want to come back and find my whole tank is rubbing up on stuff.

 

[Menagerie]

If it is ich--treat the whole tank with the heat and salt methos as described in the FW ich article in the Articles section. Ich also can stay in the gills and not be seen.

 

[Maillis]

My danios will sometimes cruise the bottom of the tank and try to kick up food, it looks a lot like rubbing.