hi everyone, i'm new to this and wold like to say i think these forums are brilliant. i've been scouring the internet for information on allsorts but this is much better than all the internet pages i've found (most of them seem to have contradicting information).

anyway, ive got my 100 l tank set up and running and a couple of days ago i added 2 kribs. one of them seems happy and swims all around the tank exploring everything, but i'm a little worried about the other one. he's slightly smaller and extremely timid and inactive. he spends most of the time hiding in plants or under logs, and even next to the filter.

i was wondering if anyone has any experience with these little guys and if this is normal behaviour? i don't think its anything ive done as he has been like this even sinse before he was let out of the bag and into the tank. the other one was swimming around the bag, but this one just stayed in one place.

any help or adice greatly appreciated, thanks alot xxx

first of all welcome to the forum do you know your water stats / did you cycle your tank
scot

hey, i couldnt seem to find any suitable ammonia product to use so i tried to cycle using food to break down to ammonina, but then read that this was not a viable method. i went to the fish shop and they gave me some kind of capsules to put which apparently contain bacteria (i was slightly sceptical), but i used them anyway, then i bought the two fish and they have been in there for 3 days.

water is ph 7.6 - 8.0
gh over 16
kh also high.
ammonia is about 0.5 but its under control with water changes. nitrate and nitrite seem undetectable.

Ammonia of 0.5 is quite bad - step up the water changes to get it down under .25 and hold it at that level. Apparently the capsules didn't do anything, since ammonia with no nitrite or nitrate means the tank isn't cycled. Just keep testing and doing as much water change as it takes to keep ammonia and nitrite under .25 until both settle steady at 0.

The food method is viable, it's just hard to control and difficult to gauge when it's finished.