Lonely or Sick

My fish is behaving strangely his been in the tank for 3 days now and has separate himself from the other fish.

Hiding in between rocks and always in the bottom corner of the tank. He hasn’t been eating and I love the fish so much... HELP ME!!!

I have rearranged the tank, and nothing change, my hospital tank is cracked so I can’t separate him Incase his being bullied, there is no sign of any diseases and I don’t want to lose the great fish it’s the blue demasoni.

Below is what I got from research.

“Whenever a fish separates itself from its tanks mates it's an indication of a stressed fish. If the fish is hanging in the upper corner chances are its being harassed and chomped on by a grumpy mug like the Frontosa in the picture.

Compatibility in a community tank can sometimes be tricky. Even fish that are generally compatible can fight during spawning or just to show who's the boss. Rearranging the decor in the aquarium is sometimes enough to calm things down.



Keep a close eye on the effected fish, if things don't calm down after a week or so remove the stressed fish and find it a new home”.

 

Please answer the questions I asked in your previous thread. I'm suspecting water quality and/or bacterial issues. It really doesn't help if you don't give feedback. There's no quick fix for anything, you need to find the problem first before you can solve it.

 

My water is crystal clear, I use Seachem Prime further more my PH is at 7.6 or higher. I do a 25% water change on a weekly basis.

 

Clear water does not good water quality make. Is there any gunk in your filter? I see that you run it with only the strainer and no pre filter, food and feces tends to get into it and rot causing the type of problems you are experiencing. What is your No2, No3 and tds?

 

To make your problems go away do the following over the weekend. Fill a bucket with tank water. Open the filter and rinse all your media in this water and rinse the sponges out properly too. Wipe all the growth on the sides of the canister and hook it back up to the tank. Let it run for a few seconds into a bucket so that it doesn't blow particles everywhere inside the tank and continue as normal. Take out any carbon or ammonia/zeolite product also if you have any. Your problems will go away after doing this. Your pH tells me that your water isn't hard enough so getting a tds pen will be helpful as malawi's prefer a harder water but we'll burn that bridge when we get there. Some of the malawi guys here use shells as a substrate to make the water to their liking.

 

Here's a pdf that summarizes their care for you nicely.

https://www.ornamentalfish.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/30-African-Malawi-Cichlids.pdf

 

Im not sure if you've covered it in one of your other threads, but i reckon its time for a full breakdown of this tank.

Sorry if you've already responded, but please give some more details about this tank... What substrate is it, what filter are you using, what is in the filter, what and how many fish do you have in there, what do you feed them, how often do you do water changes, what are your full water parameters etc etc etc etc. Without this information its all guess work, and at the moment there seems to be a whole lot going on with this tank.

 

@Hlompho Lion ,

Both @BoelderBeestie and @Reedfish have given good advice

I have to say that personally, my gut feeling is that Im suspecting a water problem as BB mentioned...
Like I said on the other thread, keep a close eye on the tank as I dont believe it was the Epson salts.
As he said, crystal clear water doesnt mean that you cant have traces of ammonia or nitrite

Reason why Im beginning to worry that its water are that firstly, quite a number of fish have been added in a short span of time
Then you started the other thread with the fat or bloat question and the problem on that fish and then suddenly you lost another two fish for no apparent reason and now this guy is not well too

You have not mentioned that any of the fish have had bite marks which you would expect to see if it was aggression causing the problem

Dont feel like by saying we suspect water quality that its a bad reflection on you
This is a fairly newly established tank and when you start adding fish especially if too many at a time, it can cause a slight crash and this can happen to the best of us
Whenever your fish are not right, unless its very obvious what's wrong like Ich, the first thing you do is test your water
It saves lives and often wasted money on medications that were not necessary
Never take for granted that your water is fine... I dont...
I am not neurotic either but at the first sign of anything wrong the water gets tested then, I take things from there

Answer the questions you have been asked ( Im not going to repeat them)... its the only way you can move forward successfully.

 

No3 is 50 which is amber
No2 is 0 which is green
Ghd is >7, >125 which pink, pink and green green
Khd is 6, 107 which is green
Ph is 7.2
Cl2 is 0

 

Therefore water is perfect

 

Thanks will read this up and will definitely clean the filters over the weekend

 

Thanks Maria

I tested the water and posted the results above, water quality seems to be okay according to the results, I got a couple of more of the same species to perhaps lift its spirit, I will see how they behave.

 

Water isn't perfect No3 is way too high. You never want to go over 20ppm. Watch out for canisters, once gunk gets trapped in then they start to produce a lot of No3 very quickly.

 

Thanks will check it out

 

Yes just remember no3 is the only thong we test for. I gives you an indication of how polluted the water is so the other nasty things will be high also. And by all means don't feel bad, everyone struggles with water quality once in a while. It happens all the time because we keep our fish in glass boxes. A pre filter on your intake does wonders hey.

 

As has been said, your water is not perfect... your nitrates are too high, this is usually caused by accumulated waste either in the filters or even on the substrate

You have also not given an Ammonia reading

Adding fish until the tank stabilizes is not the best idea and when adding you should not add more than two at a time, you say you have added a couple more fish all in one go again to a tank that is not stable which was also not a good idea

I am not being petty by harping on the number of fish you add in one go
Think of it this way
You have 6 fish and the bacteria in your filters have grown and adjusted to deal with the waste of those six
When you add fish, the bacteria needs to multiply a little more to compensate for the new fish but the bacteria doesnt grow and multiply miraculously overnight, it takes a little while... two weeks or so..
If you add one or two fish.. it gives the bacteria a chance to adjust
If you suddenly add 5 or 6 fish, the bacteria doesnt have a chance to multiply fast enough to cope with the extra work and you have a crash.
Hope this makes sense


As @BoelderBeestie said, give that filter a good clean in tank water and thereafter ensure your pre filter is kept clean at all times
Do gravel vacs when you do water changes to remove food and poo trapped in the substrate
Increase your water changes to 40% weekly, this will also help control your nitrates



Do an ammonia reading as well... its the most important

 

I introduced a couple of more demasoni, the lonely started moving around and has also started to eat, he is beginning to be more active.

 

That's great but... keep an eye on those Nitrates and ammonia levels