Fish Behaviour

[bravehart]

We have a freshly cycled 60l tank and added fish about 48 hours ago.
There was a small nitrite spike to 1ppm wich reduced to 0.25ppm within 12hrs.
(we should have done a water change, but by the time we found out it was back
down to negligible levels). There are a few plants in. The fish we have are:

3 Panda Corys and 3 male Sunset Platys.

Not sure if one of the Platys isn't picking on another. He seems to be following (chasing) the other one aroundI might be over interpreting there behaviour and it could be simply playful, but better to ask than to simply be ignorant.

I also read on another post about flicking being a possible sign of ich. One of the Platys is flicking the leaf of a plant to dislodge some algae. I thought that he was doing it to get a feed, but after reading this other post, perhaps something else is going on. Ammonia and Nitrite are both at zero, haven't tested for nitrate for a day or so, that was at 40 ppm. The filter is working well and water clarity and everything else seems fine.

Tim

 

[bravehart]

Sorry, just re-read my post and it has come out like an observation, but it was meant to be two questions
1)

Not sure if one of the Platys isn't picking on another. He seems to be following (chasing) the other one aroundI might be over interpreting there behaviour and it could be simply playful, but better to ask than to simply be ignorant.

should I be doing anything about this?

2)

I also read on another post about flicking being a possible sign of ich. One of the Platys is flicking the leaf of a plant to dislodge some algae. I thought that he was doing it to get a feed, but after reading this other post, perhaps something else is going on. Ammonia and Nitrite are both at zero, haven't tested for nitrate for a day or so, that was at 40 ppm. The filter is working well and water clarity and everything else seems fine.

Tim

Do you think he has a problem with ich or....?

 

[Twinklecaz]

Are you sure the Platty being chased isn't female?

 

[mattlee]

Hi, if your nitrite is at 0.25 then its stil adangerous level for the fish and another 50% water change is required.... this will be the reason your fish are flicking against ogjects as they are being poisoned and its effecting their gills, not because its getting the algae off.... if its ich then you will see very small white salt grain like spots on the fish but im pretty sure its the nitrite causing it.

the platys that are chasing are they male or female? to check look at their anal fin and if its a fan shape then its female and if its a pointy shape its a gonopod and therefor a male. if they are mixed sexes then the male will constantly harrass the female to breeding. its best to get a 3 to 1 female to male ratio to prevent a single female to get stressed out which can bring on disease etc, or to just buy all males or all females. this way you dont get over run with fry too

 

[waterdrop]

Hi bravehart, I think I saw in a different thread that you had now changed water.. that one was probably more recent than this one. Probably larger 70% type change will be more effective when you see a significant spike beyond 0.25ppm. Sometimes these things just happen and it shouldn't take too long before the bacterial colonies will finally come up to speed.

 

[bravehart]

thanks for the replies....the Nitrite dropped to zero shortly after the 12 hour period and flicking seems to have stopped after starting to feed them more. Do hungry platys eat algae? They are definitely all male and the three of them seemed to have calmed down, it was probably just me over interpreting them messing around and getting used to new surroundings.

Thanks again , Tim

 

[mattlee]

thanks for the replies....the Nitrite dropped to zero shortly after the 12 hour period and flicking seems to have stopped after starting to feed them more. Do hungry platys eat algae? They are definitely all male and the three of them seemed to have calmed down, it was probably just me over interpreting them messing around and getting used to new surroundings.

Thanks again , Tim

glad to hear everything is back to normal

yes platys will eat algae if hungry

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, not only will you see them pick at and eat algae, but over time you may observe that this spreads out somewhat generally to many livebearers. They will roam the tank and pick at surfaces looking for food. You'll notice that some other fish types, tetras for instance, don't behave this way, at least as much.

~~waterdrop~~