Help with Armatus: slime coat or something else?

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He does not swim around continuously all day, rather he stays in one spot in the tank for maybe 30 minutes, then moves to a different spot. In between "spots" he moves around for maybe 10 minutes, like he's looking for something.

He seems to like it in the area with the highest amount of current, then last night he slept out of the current. He ate one whole shrimp last night, it didn't take much to get him to chase after it. He must like the smell, and recognize the shape and color by now.

I feel like an idiot for basically being the reason this happened to him, but when I put him in the water and half of his back scales fell off I almost died. Has this ever happened to you Jason, with either the Armatus or the Tat you had? I am really considering adding some Pimafix, but don't want to unless I truly have to.
 
Ive never had it happen but did notice my net had a little sparkle from his scales but not much. Again its normal to have some scale loss, but this was a little much.

Its good he ate. Keep that temp up and watch for any signs of seconday infection. If not I would not worry too much about any meds.

Him eating is a good thing. I mean hell he is an armatus...notoriously hard to get off of live, has been taken from his home, shoved into another, had some minor damage and STILL ate prepared food! Good sign me thinks.

Him swimming like you mentioned seems normal.

How much current you got?

I ran two MArineland 1140 power heads stacked on top of each other blowing in the same direction.
 
As promised, here are the pictures from today. More of that white tissue stuff has started to peel back, exposing more of the pinkish/red tissue (that I assume is healing) underneath.

Also, I noticed that the white slimy stuff on top of the white tissue and wounded area with no scales has taken on a more fuzzy appearance than it was yesterday. I hope it's not some fungal thing. I made sure to take photos of both sides of him:

Looking at these pictures makes me feel so badly.

armatus-1.jpg

armatus-2.jpg
 
Yeah, the temp is up. I set it on the stealth to 88 degrees. I have added 18 tablespoons of salt so far, I'll add the rest tonight to get 25 tablespoons, and then I'll let it stew a bit to see how it's progressing.
 
It just floors me when I think about how just the texture of my hands and fingerstips caused this. These fish have extremely delicate scales obviously.

Needless to say, I'm going to let him heal up fully before transferring him again. The last thing he needs right now is another set of hands holding him or a net on his body...jeez.
 
I've pretty much decided that it's healing fine. The fish just has way too much attitude for me to think he's sick. he fake bullrushes the glass at me, eats, and just generally acts like an *******.

I'll continue the tablespoon of salt per 3 gallons until I feel it's all healed up, and keep the temperature where it is as well.
 
I wouldnt use that much salt for more then 48hours. Tomorrow do a small 20-25% water change to dilute the salt a little.

I do think he will fine as his attitude sounds about like the SOB he really is!

I will admit, my heart sunk when I first saw your thread!
 
Oh I'm sure. I was almost apprehensive when I was about to post, as I didn't want to make you feel bad, but I felt I had to get some advice before I tried to solve this myself. I'm glad I posted now.

I'll do a water change tomorrow and dilute it a bit. Should I just keep diluting the salt with more water changes farther along in the week?
 
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