why does my trigger keep rubbing?

my picasso trigger keeps rubbing himself against the LR and LS. why does he do this, usually after he eats.

 

i dont why he is doing it but my tangs used to do that and they would also slap the sand like they had an itch but they havent done it in atleast a month

 

they have all been in the tank for like a month or so...
when i added the fish there was nothing in the tank at all, other than sand and LR, so why quarantine them, they all came from the same place.

 

You should always quarantine the fish before adding them to the main display takn even if they came from the same place. Quarantine is not only to make sure they are eating and healthy but to also make sure their behavior is normal and some people will treat their fish for worms or parasites in the quarantine tan. You also don't want something unwanted to be introduced to your main display tank.

 

well, they all eat really well, i feed shrimp and silversides (frozen). he just does it when he eats it seems. everyone is healthy looking, the tank was brand new, i even screwed up at first by not letting the water cycle, i got some water from the LFS guys' 100 gallon tank, bout 30-35 gallons, and used it in my tank. so at first i did go wrong, but there were no fish at all before these additions, these were the first fish, and looks to be the last due to the overstocking.

i understand the quarantine thing fully, but if these were the first fish in the tank, i guess i just dont understand why i should quarantine them, there was nothing in the tank to get sick.

 

No, there was nothing in the tank to get them sick. But if they had diseases first (which many fish do), quarantining them means you can get rid of the disease before you introduce it to your tank, and then no matter how many fish you add, if they are quarantined, your tank can remain disease free.

If you introduce fish to your tank without quarantining them, you introduce disease to your tank, and every fish you add to your tank there on after, whether you quarantine subsequent fish or not (if your tank already has disease, it doesn't matter if you quarantine fish in the future, they will just get it as soon as you add them to the main tank).

So quarantining your first fish does make sense. Not quarantining your first fish, but then quarantining fish after that does not make sense.

Anyways, rubbing on sand and rock is often a sign of external parasites (making the fish itch). As long as the fish is still eating and is not showing signs of illness or injury, it should be okay. If it does have a parasite, quarantining it would have prevented that parasite from spreading to your entire tank (which, if it is a parasite, has now happened).

 

alright, i understand now, thanks Biff. can i treat the water with anything in order to get rid of this parasite?

 

Not everything is 100% reef safe, some medications are marked as such, but they don't always work as they say.

Until you see visible signs of the disease, I wouldn't bother trying to treat it. You have no idea what disease it is without being able to see it.

 

my tank i a FOWLR, no corals, but i guess you could be referring to the algae and such on the LR too though. alright, i will keep a close eye out.

is there a chance that this fish just has an itch, or maybe even a territorial thing? its been going on for like 2 days now.

 

Also, to follow up on Yote's comment, you may want to add corals in the future, even though you don't have them now. Some medications will stay in the rock and leach out, having a detrimental affect on inverts.