Hi guys

My 44gal has been running for about 3months or so. It is reasonably heavily planted. Ammonia is 0, ph is 6.8 and nitrates seem to hover around 10. All fish appear healthy and happy in the community tank but....

Fish in the tank are: 10 Neon Tetra, 4 Cory, 3 Zebra Loach, 2 Bolivian ram, 1 Kribnesis and 1 sp. Pleco.

Over the last few weeks I notice the odd Cory and zebra loach sort of scrub themselves on the sand substrate. Defiantly no sign of ich or valvet...yet. I thought I saw a white spot on the krib so I bumped up the temp to 80deg. Turned out to be a color spot on her tail, it turned orange and color matched her markings. So why would I see this occasional scrub or itch?? Is there reason to be concerned?? Maybe the temp should be lowered as I have no concern of ich? I have never added salt as the Cory and loach are scale less.

I hope I have no problems arising, water params have always been good, I have never lost a fish (accept a transport issue of 1) and have been diligent in just about every aspect of fish keeping.

If it doesn't occur very often, I'd leave it. Chances are water changes will take care of the problem. If it gets worse or more regular, go to Petsmart or Petco and get a product called Parasite Clear (tank buddies), made by Tetra. Throw some tabs in and it will take care of it. It doesn't work on ich, so make sure it isn't that.

Thanks Ben, I do spend alot of time looking at the tank and it's inhabitants. I have only seen this happen a couple of times. What do you think it could be?? I have never been one to add chemicals to the tank, but I admire your experience and trust your advise. Still, I will wait and see what happens.

There are some external parasites that can affect fish that will show no visible signs other than the fish acting weird and flashing. I have only seen it in one or two of my fish, one case so bad I thought the fish had lost his mind, threw them in a separate tank and one treatment of the parasite clear and they never did it again. I don't like chems or meds either, but a lot of fish owners will wait too long to act on something to the point the fish is suffering, me included in the past, and meds are very quick to throw in a tank and the problem is gone and the fish acts if nothing ever happened. I would rather act at first sign.

My female gouramis (before the male killed them all) used to randomly itch themselves on branches of wood. The male does sometimes too.... he's been here 3 weeks and so far he's fine. I guess fish get itchy like we do.

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Your male killed all your females? So much for no aggression toward females.... Maybe it would be better to just have one female. My male has killed 3 others also - males.

Well... once he killed the first 2 females, he only had 1 female left... and he still wasn't happy.

Although.... now that he's gone through them all, he rarely comes out of hiding... in fact, I haven't seen him all day! Weeeeird!

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Turns out I didn't see him for 2 days because he had a swim bladder problem. He died... poor, poor abusive Bruce.... :(

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