Scratching and restlessness may be Gill fluke?

[Elbling0]

Elblingo here,
My Mangrove jack has just gotten over a case of popeye because of eye related trauma from moving and acclimating to new tank, and now I see he is scratching a LOT against the sand, he started doing this a few days after I got him and he was in my 55 gallon, but very rarely, would hardly ever see him do it. I've read that some cichlids scratch because of territoriality so I put it down to that as he was eating fine, he had great colour, no fins were clamped and his gills were moving and functioning normally.

Now after moving him to his new 180 gallon home he seems to be scratching a lot more, shaking his head from time to time and flaring his jaws. Now i'm realising something is definately wrong put he still has colour, no fins are clamped, he is still eating but nowhere near as much as about a week ago, I was thinking maybe Gill fluke because it's unnoticable unless you scrape your fish and put it under a microscope. But at this point he seems to be getting very disturbed, I am in the last 2 days of treating my tank with Melafix, I know I probably need something anti-parasitic which I don't think Melafix treats. He seems to be fine for periods of time, then just snaps.
Anyone had problems with something like this before because I want to know exactly what he has before I go and get chemical agents to treat him.

Cheers,
Elblingo

 

[StingraySteve]

tends to happen with a lot of wild-caught fish. I've had many native do the exact same thing. There was probably a parasite or bacteria that got its window of opportunity during the stress of moving tanks. Not 100% sure what it is with the jack but the fact he is still eating is a good sign. Whenever I experienced it I used some type of "magic bullet" style med, something with methylene blue and formaldehyde at half dosage

 

[StingraySteve]

Also be a good idea to keep the lights off to lower stress especially if his new home doesn't have many hiding places - jacks love to lurk in shadows anyway

 

[Elbling0]

Also be a good idea to keep the lights off to lower stress especially if his new home doesn't have many hiding places - jacks love to lurk in shadows anyway

Thanks mate, he seems to be not scratching at all, but he's gone off his feeders and will only eat live worms now, i'll give him a feeder and he'll only kill it, then leave it. If he's really hungry he'll grab it and spit it out anywhere from 5 to 25 times before swallowing it. His feeders are very small though, I was putting it down to him getting bored with his food because theres 50 worms all over the tank when he eats them and has fun darting around but with the feeder gudgeons its no chase and a one bite kill. But then I think maybe something is irritating his gills. He still eats like a horse, he has full colour and is DEFINITELY not lethargic, breathing perfectly I guess he's just a weird Jack