My Gremlin....domino damsel

[SmknReefer]

Its not white, its not ich, I'm thinking something else, not quite sure what though. He's the boss of my tank, no one is picking on him -unless they all gang up on him at night. I tried to catch him today to put in QT but alas I scraped my hands on the rock and stressed him out. Now when I come up to the tank I'm the bad guy. I need to know if its alright, the only thing in here is 1 green, 2 blue yellowtail, 1 silver yellowtail, 1 three stripe damsels and a mandarin dragonette. Small hermit crabs, snails, emerald crabs....thats it.

 

[SmknReefer]

Oh and his eyes aren't clouded, he's actually swimming and eating perfect and my parameters are great.
PH 8.3
Nitrates 0
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 5-10
I even had the LFS test the water too just to double check my results...

 

[SmknReefer]

bizump...

 

[limitdown]

It looks like he might have some holes in his head/face (HITH). Do any of your other fish have this?

If your other fish have it, then you might have some parasites. But HITH isn't always caused by parasites, and is more often related to water quality.

These guys are extremely fast and are really difficult to catch. If you must move him, then you might need to pull out every piece of live rock from your display tank to even stand a chance of catching him.

 

[SmknReefer]

No, noone else has it, I haven't missed more than a day for testing in the last 8months because I'm so paranoid. I haven't had anything out of the normal parameters. Tank cycled smoothly for 3 months with live rock and sand... then added the fish. I also have a mushroom in there to help give me an idea if water parameters are out of wack. He's doing well and the only time he closed up was when a hermit crab was picking at the rock beside him.
Should I catch him and QT? Let it go? I'll do some research on HITH, thanks for giving me somewhere to look!!!

 

[SmknReefer]

Different angle perhaps help??

 

[Sk8r]

What are you feeding him? Variety? Brand?

 

[SmknReefer]

Other tankmates.....

 

[SmknReefer]

Frozen Cyclops San Francisco Bay Brand in the evenings.
Wardley Shrimp Pellets
Nutrafin Max Marine Flake Food

*edited: Added the mushroom based on your suggestions sk8ter! Thanks for all your help and advice, as always. Genius.

 

[Sk8r]

I'd switch away from anything brine shrimp, go to frozen mysis shrimp, Prime Reef, and if you need to feed dry food, Formula One sinking pellet....tangs, for instance, get something called HLLE, and nutrition is suspect, lack of vitamin A, and maybe E...can't remember offhand. Butthey get it when they get too much meat and too little algae. Damsels are designed to eat small crustaceans and algaes. There's a food supplement called Selcon: dissolving a mysis cube or soaking a sinking pellet helping in that, maybe. Brine shrimp, that old staple of the hobby, just doesn't contain all the nutrients marine fish need. For a treat, make up your own food out of several varieties of fish food, spirulina algae, and some fresh shellfish/shrimp from the market, maybe even fresh diced garlic, dice it into portions and freeze it hard. It might help. These guys eat a varied diet, and he may be missing some things.

 

[SmknReefer]

The brine shrimp was mostly for helping out the growth of my copepods but I won't deny that everything in the tank has eaten them. That being said, I have some Sea Veggies -which they could not care at all for so I haven't been as consistent as that. I guess I'm stopping by the store on the way home!
Thanks a million!