sick royal gramma?

[khoogenboom]

Setup my tank 2 months ago. I have 2 clowns, 1 foxface, and 1 royal gramma. The royal gramma now has some discoloration on its belly (see atch blurry photo) aft of the gills. It sometimes swims really fast and brushes up against large things in the tank as if to scratch an itch on its side. Please advise.

[kingfisher62]

Scratching can be a sign of Ich. How is your water quality ? What are your parameters?

[whyzee429]

the discoloration would seem more like a fungal issue though. right?

[kingfisher62]

the discoloration would seem more like a fungal issue though. right?

Could be or it could be an abrasion from the fish scratching on rocks.

[spw4949]

Could def be either or, or a combo of the two, a little info regarding your set-up & water parameters might help a little..........

[mann1139]

How long have you had the fish? Is it the newest to the tank? Smaller than the clowns?

My RG shows up with scrapes every now and then, but bounces back. It could just be disturbed scales, or it could be something more serious.

[khoogenboom]

I'm not sure if I'm going to say all of this correctly (my husband is out of town), but I think the information you are looking for is: we have a 90 gallon, FOWLR tank, we have 2 clowns, 1 foxface, and 1 royal gramma and 2 red-legged crabs. We have a UV light which is currently on and has been since before the discoloration started. We also have a wet/dry system with bio balls.

The water parameters are:
salt 1.020
ph 8.2
ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.1

We have had the Foxface for about 2 weeks and the Royal Gramma and clowns for 5-6 weeks.

[justurmom]

discoloration? is it possibly greenish coloured?

[mann1139]

I'm not sure if I'm going to say all of this correctly (my husband is out of town)

You did just fine with the jargon. :thumbsup:

The behavior doesn't sound like "ich scratching" to me.

Grammas are 'lurkers' by nature. They find a hole, and just poke their heads out, watching.

Your RG may have found a hole, got in, and then had a tough time getting out. I would watch the scrape, and see if gets better or worse.

I would also watch for harassment from the other fish. The RG is the least dominant of those species, and could be getting bullied.

[khoogenboom]

The discoloration seems more like a whitish color and it's mostly on the underside of the fish.

I also forgot to mention that the Royal Gramma as well as the other 4 fish are all eating well.

[khoogenboom]

Our Royal Gramma likes to hang out in "caves" of the live rock, most often, so it makes sense it could be a scrape.

It seems to get along pretty well with the Foxface, but is skittish around the clowns still.

We'll keep an eye on it to see if it goes away on it's own.

[stingythingy45]

Just a thought,but one of my first fish was a Royal Gramma.
That fish was infested with flukes and died.Maybe look up flukes.