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Helping them shed scutes

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Posted by: misternadav at Mon May 5 10:40:38 2008  [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by misternadav ]  
   

I have a juvenile female, less than 3 or 4 years old, and in her tank she doesn't get a lot of opportunity to rub up against rocks or swim very fast on a regular basis.

Every once in a while a small piece of scute will come off in her tank from her just swimming around, but not that often.

What mostly happens, though, is her scutes just keep growing in, and the top layer looks really dirty and worn, sometimes with air bubbles visible under them or patches where scutes have broken, exposing a newer layer underneath.

Is it healthy for her to take her out once in a while and, using my fingernails, peel off the old scutes for her? I did this once and the scute came off really easily, but I wanted to check on here to see if I was doing something really dangerous so I'll know never to do it again.

Sorry about the long read.
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