# Piranha is scratching himself...(not like that)



## brad99 (Dec 4, 2003)

Hey guys heres the deal:

9 piranhas (1.5-2inches size) in a 188g
one of the fish is rubbing up against the i.e. ground, logs, rocks. He isnt going crazy with it yet. When i watch them for an hour he's probably done it twice or three times. Fish store guy tells me fish dont need to scratch. Well I dont know about that. Anybody have any advice? Am I worrying about nothing?









ps.
checked the chemistry and
AMMONIA 0ppm
NITRITE 0ppm
NITRATE 0ppm
PH 7.0
temp is 78


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Scratching or flashing can be caused by either a change in water parameters or parasites/flukes.....Since your nitrates say zero you did not cycle your tank. Is it safe to say you just bought these guys and threw them in a virgin tank.


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## brad99 (Dec 4, 2003)

the tank has been cycled.


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## o snap its eric (Feb 19, 2003)

fish do itch like all other living animals... itch is natural.

Do a 1tsp/3gallon for a week just to be safe on your water changes


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## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Keep an eye out for any other symptoms and watch that they don't start doing it excessively. Fish need to itch themselves, especially young pygos because they are growing and new scales are always coming in.

Keep an eye out for the common stuff like water parameters, flukes and ich and you should be ok


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## Dr Exum (Nov 6, 2004)

elTwitcho said:


> Keep an eye out for any other symptoms and watch that they don't start doing it excessively. Fish need to itch themselves, especially young pygos because they are growing and new scales are always coming in.
> 
> Keep an eye out for the common stuff like water parameters, flukes and ich and you should be ok
> [snapback]794605[/snapback]​


is this common that young p's scratch??? how often should they do it?


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## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

one of my young pygos scratches. he will do a little 'flick' on the sand, just a very brief scratch.

i dont see any signs of ich or flukes on him.

before i put them in, i treated for ich and other parasites, just to be sure for when i added them. none of the other Ps are scratching, andthe one that does, is acting totally fine otherwise. i thought he was getting rowdy because the food was in the tank. but hopefully he's just growing.


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

my 3" p's scratch themselves on airlining, its kinda funny they all like up and do it in a row, but i see no signs of ich at all on em


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