fast little Pseudochromis

[eleyan]

My Purple Pseudochromis seems to have some sort of skin parasite. He's been scratching himself against the rocks for about a month now. None of my other fish seem to be bothered though. It looks like he's got velvet or somthing like it. And he is really scratching the hell out of it. It looks like he has a big sore on one side now.

https://webspace.utexas.edu/eleyan/temp/psudo1.JPG
https://webspace.utexas.edu/eleyan/temp/psudo2.JPG

He is still swimming and eating fine. I've been trying to catch him, but he is really fast, and I don't want to move all the rocks to get to him. Any Ideas what he has, how to catch him, or how to treat him?
I have a UV sterilizer, and it seems that its working in preventing other fish from getting whatever he has, but I don't want to risk it much longer. I was hoping to catch him and give him a fresh water dip.

[StephenA]

Leave the net in the tank for about 4 days. Always try to feed him near the net. On the 3rd day let your power head blow in to the net and feed near it again. On the 4th or 5th day start letting the food drift in to the net and let him swim in to it WITHOUT trying to catch him. After he does that a couple of times snatch him up. Works about 50% of the time.

[Tim Marvin]

That looks like a Rio pump........Go to Aquatek and get a grounding probe. I'll bet you have a little stray current.

[Instar]

Looks like the result of osmotic shock. Its a bacterial infection that took over due to aclimation from a very low salinity like most LFS keep their fish at to your salinity. Then a partial and too fast aclimation and the fins start to rot off as well as the gills have difficulty and burn. Its all the way into the tail base as I can see from the picture. And from the picture it looks like all fins are affected at their outer margins as is the mucous on the entire fish. It takes a very long time to recover from that. The scratching on rocks comes from the fact that its annoying and he is trying to knock it off. Ick is a secondary parasite as is the bacterial infection. The other things that can cause a persistent fin loss like that is a fish picking on him and taking chunks out of his fins, real poor water (as in tap water for make up water), poor maint. overall (lots of bacterial problems with nitrogen), and excessive stray current from a faulty pump seal. If you have a UV sterilizer running all the time, check for residual ozone. That will also burn the mucous and fin outer margins.