Blue damsel losing scales

[stingeragent]

Ok, this is a new tank. Has been setup like 2 weeks roughly. All params are good. My 1 blue damsel (only fish in tank) , i noticed a couple days ago a scale or 2 were missing on his right side. No sores or ulcers or anything, just looked like the scales were nolonger there and you could see his flesh underneath. Get home from work tonight and the size of missing scales has about doubled. He doesn't seem to be acting out of the ordinary or anything, but something is causing the issue. Only other things in the tank are 2 turbo's, cc star, cleaner shrimp

Parameters
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Ph 8.2
Temp 77.2
Salinity 1.024

 

[humaguy]

Ok, this is a new tank. Has been setup like 2 weeks roughly. All params are good. My 1 blue damsel (only fish in tank) , i noticed a couple days ago a scale or 2 were missing on his right side. No sores or ulcers or anything, just looked like the scales were nolonger there and you could see his flesh underneath. Get home from work tonight and the size of missing scales has about doubled. He doesn't seem to be acting out of the ordinary or anything, but something is causing the issue. Only other things in the tank are 2 turbo's, cc star, cleaner shrimp

Parameters
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Ph 8.2
Temp 77.2
Salinity 1.024

It has been set-up for 2 weeks and "all params are good?!?" Why is there anything living in the tank? needs to be fully cycled before livestock is added...

 

[stingeragent]

It cycled albeit a short one. I had ammonia then nitrites then nitrates and wc have gotten rid of the nitrates. They were between 5 and 10 till I did wc. I dont believe there is a set time exactly for a cycle. A true full cycle prolly takes 6 months or longer. Once ur numbers settle how long should u wait. As in whats dif between all levels being 0 @ 2 weeks vs them being 0 @ 2 months? For the record I check everything daily and it has been stable for last week and thats when I added the fish. Not trying to sound rude just curious.

 

[smtank]

What did you use to seed the tank?
What are you feeding the cuc and the starfish?

 

[stingeragent]

Tank has 20lbs live sand. 18lbs live rock that was already cured from my lfs and 10 lbs dry rock. Been feeding mysis shrimp, eggs, and 1mm sinking pellets. Have been spot feeding the cc 1/2 in shrimp. Not sure what kind they are. Ive also got plenty of algae to go around already

 

[smtank]

Since the fish is otherwise acting fine and eating, your choices seem to be physical injury from rock work or another tank inhabitant trying to get the fish. The suspects in this case might be the shrimp or the cc, unless some predatory crab made it in on the rock work.

If you're an experienced hobbyist then you can probably push the envelop. If you're a newer hobbyist if behooves one to take the slow route. At 2 weeks time if I used fully cured LR then I might proceed with members of the cuc, but certainly no fish or inverts like starfish.

No there is no exact set time length regarding the initial cycle, but a nice safe generalization of 6 weeks seems a common sense way to proceed.

 

[stingeragent]

How would I go about finding a crab? I def got hitchikers. Probably 20 or more brittle stars and 1 snail that I know of. I also have a couple yellow polyp frags. I read they can sting other corals. Do they sting fish also? Lets say my fish dies in a few days. Would that more likely point to some kind of parasite or bacteria and if so would it die off on its own fishless or is all my water bad or where would I go from there. I have 5 fresh water tanks but this first salt

 

[smtank]

Yellow polyps should not be troublesome, they can be invasive and like most corals have the ability to sting other corals infringing on their real estate.

Do some research on Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon Irritans, this is not the same organism as fresh water ich, remedies for fresh are not effective against marine ich. It's a fairly easy parasite to diagnosis visually while it's on the main body of the fish. This parasite will be your most problematic.

If the fish dies and you do not suspect marine ich wait a couple weeks to add any other fish. Everything that goes into cycling a tank and stabilizing that tank can not be detected by test kits.

I too started out with fresh water tanks for decades. Other than the container that holds water and the basic concept of biological filtration salt water is a completely different art and science. You have to go much slower and make interventions one at a time.

After over 27 years on salt, I still lean something every single day. Just keep researching and reaching out for assistance.

Good luck

 

[humaguy]

It cycled albeit a short one. I had ammonia then nitrites then nitrates and wc have gotten rid of the nitrates. They were between 5 and 10 till I did wc. I dont believe there is a set time exactly for a cycle. A true full cycle prolly takes 6 months or longer. Once ur numbers settle how long should u wait. As in whats dif between all levels being 0 @ 2 weeks vs them being 0 @ 2 months? For the record I check everything daily and it has been stable for last week and thats when I added the fish. Not trying to sound rude just curious.

the levels take a bit of a roller during cycling...no way your tank was ready after 2 weeks...

 

[stingeragent]

I had forgot about my post here but wanted to update. It's been several weeks now and the injury on him has healed up perfectly and hes been fine ever since.