Royal gramma scratching: It's probably not flukes

[Breadbox]

Royal Gramma is a fish that has given me abit of trouble, they seem to be very prone to unexplained bouts of flashing when every other fish seem completely fine.

Through a very unfortunate QT crash years ago, I've learnt that, Royal Gramma, as compared to other fishes of its size, has a exceptionally thin muscous coat. Its fins and bodies exhibited signs of ammonia burns when my other fishes did not. They are very suceptible to bacterial and chemical irritants.

My current gramma has being doing well for years until I've decided to my tank abit more attention than usual. I've
-Stepped up feeding
-Added a few new fishes
-Nopox dosing

Within 1-2 days of me adding the new fishes my gramma started scratching! I watch the scratching get worse and worse as its colours and energy fades.
Obviously my mind immediately jumped to diseases and I've hit my tank with 2 doses Prazi which didn't improve things one bit. Infact, it got alot worse as the mid section of the fish turned white(from scratching)!
Things only began to improve until I did a big water change, added carbon, dial back the frozen and stopped dosing nopox. The scratching and hiding stopped completely within a week.

What really made it obvious is when I started feeding unrinsed frozen again. I'm not joking when I say the fish started hiding and scratching itself within the hour after I fed the tank!

So, my suggestions to anyone who has a flashing Gramma, minimise the messy frozen food, always rinse it and just to be safe, drop the carbon dosing. And if it is really bad, do a big water change and add some activated carbon.

 

[LeftyReefer]

My RG will scratch occasionally too, but it's not caused by frozen foods, it's caused by dosing ammonia or nitrate.
When I dose ammonia or nitrate, my RG goes into a scratching fit for a few hours.

I only feed frozen foods, which I feed every day, and I've never noticed my RG scratching from frozen foods.
The only time I've seen it scratch was within minutes of dosing either ammonia or nitrate. and then it goes away within a day.

I assumed it was irritating to their gills, so i try to only dose those when I'm completely bottomed out in nitrates and now I'm more careful on dosing it slower/less at a time.

 

[MnFish1]

Royal Gramma is a fish that has given me abit of trouble, they seem to be very prone to unexplained bouts of flashing when every other fish seem completely fine.

Through a very unfortunate QT crash years ago, I've learnt that, Royal Gramma, as compared to other fishes of its size, has a exceptionally thin muscous coat. Its fins and bodies exhibited signs of ammonia burns when my other fishes did not. They are very suceptible to bacterial and chemical irritants.

My current gramma has being doing well for years until I've decided to my tank abit more attention than usual. I've
-Stepped up feeding
-Added a few new fishes
-Nopox dosing

Within 1-2 days of me adding the new fishes my gramma started scratching! I watch the scratching get worse and worse as its colours and energy fades.
Obviously my mind immediately jumped to diseases and I've hit my tank with 2 doses Prazi which didn't improve things one bit. Infact, it got alot worse as the mid section of the fish turned white(from scratching)!
Things only began to improve until I did a big water change, added carbon, dial back the frozen and stopped dosing nopox. The scratching and hiding stopped completely within a week.

What really made it obvious is when I started feeding unrinsed frozen again. I'm not joking when I say the fish started hiding and scratching itself within the hour after I fed the tank!

So, my suggestions to anyone who has a flashing Gramma, minimise the messy frozen food, always rinse it and just to be safe, drop the carbon dosing. And if it is really bad, do a big water change and add some activated carbon.

How did you dose the prazipro? Did you quarantine the new fish? I'm going to make another hypothesis. The new fish were carrying some disease, that you Gramma got, resulting in the scratching. The only thing that changed what adding new fish, so thats where I would look for a cause. Neither carbon dosing nor Nopox should affect fish. But - the good thing is that its improved!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

As these fish are prone to flukes, dose prazi pro at85% of recommended dose which takes 2-4 days to start taking effect and add air stone during treatment

 

[LeftyReefer]

As these fish are prone to flukes, dose prazi pro at85% of recommended dose which takes 2-4 days to start taking effect and add air stone during treatment

Can I ask why at 85% of recommended dose for prazipro?
what is the reason for under-dosing it by 15% ? Is this to account for tank volume vs actual water volume in a QT tank? or is there some other reason?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Can I ask why at 85% of recommended dose for prazipro?
what is the reason for under-dosing it by 15% ? Is this to account for tank volume vs actual water volume in a QT tank? or is there some other reason?

The 85% dose is only if you don’t know the net volume of the tank (rocks and sand subtract about 15% from a tank’s rated volume). If you happen to know the actual water volume of the tank (like you measured it) you can dose 100% of that. Don’t forget to add in the volume of any water in your sump.

Always ensure good aeration when dosing Prazipro - either an air stone or a protein skimmer. If using a skimmer, keep it running full blast, but don’t collect any skimmate.

 

[rusty shackleford yes]

Last time my Royal gramma started Scratching itself it was indeed Ich and everyone died

 

[Breadbox]

How did you dose the prazipro? Did you quarantine the new fish? I'm going to make another hypothesis. The new fish were carrying some disease, that you Gramma got, resulting in the scratching. The only thing that changed what adding new fish, so thats where I would look for a cause. Neither carbon dosing nor Nopox should affect fish. But - the good thing is that its improved!!

I quaratine every fish I add and I dosed prazi twice 5 days apart almost month ago.

Thankfully, I can say for certain now that the scratching is purely due to feeding too much unrinsed frozen food.
I elininated unrinsed frozen and it went away after 2-3 days, it is remarkably consistent. No, It does not return unless I feed messy food again.

 

[Bear22]

IME with RGs, they are a frustrating fish with respect to scratching. This behavior could be ich, flukes, or it could very well be a territorial display. IME, RGs seem to be more prone to ich in the gills versus showing signs of the parasite breaking through the skin (white spots).

You have to watch closely the scratch pattern. Do they scratch a specific spot? Do they scratch when a particular fish gets too close to their spot in the tank that they've staked-out? Does the fish scratch just after feeding time has started? RGs remind me a lot of many cichlid species that do a considerable amount of scratching as a means to communicate to tankmates where the boundaries are.

Don't be quick to reach for the bottle of Prazipro. This stuff will seriously throw the bacteria biome of the tank into a tail-spin that takes weeks or even months to sort itself out back to where you started pre-dosing. I mention this because if ich and not flukes (misdiagnosis), then the Prazipro is going to be nothing, but a problem creation.