Substrate & German Blue Ram Health

[mark4785]

Just thought i'd mention that my GBR went through a phase involving no rubbing for about 4 days. After looking at some tiny particles that had landed on the substrate I felt the need to do a gravel vac. After disturbing the substrate he started darting around the tank really quickly, rubbing every 1-2 seconds as he made his way around the tank.

Based on that, would it be normal to think one of the following:

1. Theres trapped toxins in the substrate which when released cause skin irritation.
2. Him seeing the substrate moving causes a natural response to want to dislodge the substrate for food (he will follow the gravel vac around to catch loose debris)
3. The loosened solids that come out of the substrate make contact with him and he's trying to shake it off.

Very interesting. Your deductions seem very logical. You are obviously a scientist at heart, if not professionally. I am becoming fascinated with this case.

Remind me why you have not considered changing the substrate, as that is what I suspect I would attempt if I was still worried about it. Although, if it just behavioural, I guess a chnage of substrate would probably change nothing !
Having a look at the website on your current substrate, I certainly agree that it "should" not be a problem, unless Caribsea are prone to BS.
It would be interesting to see a video of his behaviour after a gravel vac, if that were at all possible.

I've not removed the substrate as people have told me to stop worrying about the GBR and only begin to worry if he loses his appetite or something more problematic arises that is more concerning. I've also not removed it as I recently installed a UV-C light which has made the rubbing less frequent (not sure how it's achieved that).

I did a gravel vac just yesterday. The main lights were off so I had to turn them on and wake up the fish to conduct it. Like always, he began frantickly flicking himself off of objects and the substrate seemingly in response to the electronic gravel vac disturbing the gravel. He continued to rub (though not frantickly) himself on the substrate every minute or so when the lights were off and would occasionally tilt himself 90 degrees to rub something near his gill on a piece of bog wood stuck out of the substrate.

One thing that surprised me was that earlier that day I simply put my hand in to sucker the mini-flipper back onto the glass and in doing so noticed a few pieces of bog wood had fallen over (they are usually stabbed vertically into the substrate) so I placed them back into the substrate and wafted sand closer to the base of the bog wood so that there was more grip. About 2 minutes later, the Ram swam over and started rubbing on the substrate where I'd been messing around with the bog wood. From this, I don't know whether he observed me moving the substrate and this rekindled the natural way in which GBR's forage for food OR whether any particles or nitrogen were released when I disturbed the substrate which caused genuine irritation. I still can't work out the answer lol.

Might be a silly question and I haven't bothered to read to see if you have done it already but....

Have you considered phoning up the producer of your substrate and asking if there were any dodgey batches? I remember seeing a recall from a certain site I order stuff regularly from with the manufacturer offering to replace it as it was of unsatisfactory quality.

It could be possible that a certain batch of the substrate was contaminated whilst bagging/shipping, they may admit to it.

If you haven't done so yet, there really isn't any harm in phoning up to find out.

I may consider doing that but the substrate bag was put in the bin so I'm not sure how far I'd get with them.