Scale damage on a chromis...

I bought 3 chromis at the LFS one week ago. They are the only fish I have. They all seemed to be doing fine, eating well, getting around fine. Two of them are very active checking out all of my rock and coral. The third spends a lot of time hidden. He comes out to feed and speeds around just the same but he comes out a lot less frequently than the other two.

This morning when I fed them they all were in the rocks and came out. The one that was hiding more had what looked like scale damage to one side. No spots like I am reading about. More like he had scraped against some rocks. Only on one side and in the middle of the body, not on the fins. Also, his color was much more darker blue than the other two which are more green and bright.

I don't yet have a quarantine tank so I have no place to put it right now. Any thoughts on what it might be?

He could have been injured from the net when he was being moved. That often will cause scale damage. He could have scraped himself against a rock. It really could have been anything, and there's not much you can do about it unfortunately. Adding some garlic extract to the food will help boost his immune system and appetite.

Where might I find garlic extract?
Thanks Biff, and have a happy Thanksgiving!

You can find it at a fish store, and my local Petcos and Petsmarts also carry it. You can also just press some garlic yourself and use the oil.

Does the cromis have any ich or disease he could of got it scracthing
i have had fish with scale damage before

I kept an eye on it and it has since gone away. I think he just got spooked.

hmm... Did anybody bother him??

is it a red'ish spot? or just a scrape? we had a ton of chromis and all but one have died because they got these weird red spots near their tale. it would start as a speck and then get huge. we asked our lfs and he said it was common since they are not treated the best when they are shipped. once they get passed a period of time in your tank, about a month or so, youre usually in the green.

No it looked more like a scrape. The there were one or two off color scales on his side. Not white or red just a slightly different shade of green. I just had a similar issue with one that somehow got sucked into my overflow box against the plastic fish screen. He's got the pattern of the screen on his side. That was a few days ago and he is doing fine and eating well.

Marine, This was from when I first introduced the fish into the tank and didn't acclimate them properly (my first time acclimating in a long while) so they were really skiddish and flying around the tank looking for a hiding spot. So what are you thinking? And is that marine as in saltwater or Marine as in Semper Fi?

ohh bigploch they said petco!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol