Is My Humbug Damsel Been Stung By Anemome?

[Alex Brown]

My 3 humbugs are 2 days old in me 2/3 week new tank.

he keeps scratching his face on rocks, i checked for white and velvet spot but there is nothing noticable on him.

my nitrates are high however, around 20, and this is a cause for scratching correct?

also, i just wached him put a mojano anemone into his mouth, these have a bad sting right? could that be it? photo attached

cheers!

 

[Colin_T]

If the tank has only been set up for a couple of weeks then you probably have a water quality issue and this could be causing the fish to be irritated and scratch. You mention the nitrates are 20ppm, that isn't too high but what is the ammonia & nitrite reading, also the PH and salinity.
Monitor the fish because they might have a few whitespot parasites on them and these will quickly multiply during the next week. If this happens then you will need to treat the tank.
The anemone looks like a baby bubbletip (Entacmaea quadricolor) and is unlikely to cause a problem to damselfish. Many damselfish take refuge in anemones when they are young.

 

[Alex Brown]

How would you recomend treating white spot if it was to be that? can i treat the whole tank as you say? there are no plans or inverts other than worms and britle stars hitch hiked in. and will that bubble tip grow? its smaller thaan a 5p piece right now, should i start feeding it?

yesterdays readings;

temp 25c
PH 8.0
nitrite 0.05
amonia 0.014
nitrate 20
alkaline 2.0
SG 1.020

240L Amazon tank

2x powerglo T5
2x lifeglo T5
1x aquabeam L.E.D marine blue

2x powerhead
external filter
300w heater
v2 skimmer 400
45kg live rock
3x humbug (5p size) introduced 2 days ago

 

[SkiFletch]

Not sure if that's a bubble tip, looks mroe like a rock anemone to me. Do the damsels have any spots on them?

 

[Alex Brown]

no spots atall. would white spots be present already if it was white spot disease??

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, most parasitic infections show themselves as white spots which irritate the skin and cause them to rub/scrape/flick themselves against rocks/substrate. If there aren't any spots though you can fule out the witespot