Help ! Strange Fish Behaviour

[Shaun6464]

Hi everyone im shaun and new to tropical tanks!

great fourm by the way,


I have started my aquarium and gone through all the correct procedures of getting everything set up, then came to getting some fish, i picked 4 Chiclid rams


But......

once i got them home i let the water temps equalise and released them into that tank with the light off left them for about 2 hours then put thelight on.......

all 4 fish were fine one was a bit shy and stayed away from the others but then after a day one became a bully and started going face to face with one of the other fish quite dramatically but thought that maybe their behavoiur so left them as it wasnt a constant attack (didnt know if should have seperated him or not)

since i have left it the shy one has now become almost in shock so not sure if the bully has attacked him and had some sort of panic attack or swim bladder but he not doesnt swim in a straight line! and spends most of his time laying on his side!! should i remove him is he too far gone???


and the next problem!! is that the bully has now upset the remaining two fish and they seem to be as bad as he is toward each other so im left with a tank i feel of angry fish and one thats ill to some degree.

can anyone help any advice welcome!!

 

[Davo86]

Hi shaun,
what size is the tank and how long has it been set up ?

 

[Shaun6464]

its 48" long, 18" wide and 18" tall has been running 2week

 

[Gilli]

Rams will need time to establish thier territories. You will need to have heavy planting and plenty of places to hide so that the bullying doesn't get out of hand. Once a pecking order and territories have been established things should start to settle down.

Rams are very sensitive to water changes and you really shouldn't have started off with these as they really need an established tank. However if you keep an eye on your water stats and do a 25% change every week you should be ok.

I would put the poorly one in a quarantine tank so he /she has a chance to recover quitely. If you dont have a spare tank then get a breeding trap and put it in that. If things dont settle down you may have to take some back to the fish shop.

Feed a varied diet of frozen worms, shrimp brine, daphnia, algae wafers etc and a good quality flake food for them to colour up brightly.

 

[SJ2K]

25% water change per week is nowhere NEAR enough im afraid, your now cycling with fish (somthing no one would recommend), you need to get yourself a relyable all round water test kit (API Master Test Kit, retails around £21). Test twice daily and if at any point the ammonia or nitrite levels rise above 0.25ppm, do a 25% water change. Feel free to ignore the advice and just hope for the best but dont expect much

 

[Gilli]

Whoa - when I read your post and you said you had gone through all the correct procedures of getting everything set up I didnt realize you had not done a fishless cycle!!

I would take them back to the fish shop immediately - they will surely die! Your tank needs all the correct bacteria thriving so it can break down all the toxins before you add fish! Read up on fishless cycling on this forum (it will take about 6 weeks) before you buy any fish!

 

[Shaun6464]

Hi thanks for all your quick replys, i have now seperated the little fish that was being bullied and will let the rest assume their pecking order as advised, the problem with the "up and running" i bought a new aquarium start up kit and followed it like the bible it has a day to day step by step guide and i added fish on the day it said thats what i needed to do!! so ill try my best to keep them alive! and the type of fish i picked was only on advise from my local aquarium so maybe not the best advise by the sounds of things!!

any more advise is welcome

thanks

 

[Gilli]

Its not your fault those start up packs are very misleading - I did exactly the same thing when I began and my first 6 fish died. I then read up all I could on forums like these wonderful places and then fishless cycled my tank before buying more. Its the best way to do it as no suffering is involved and none of my fish died.

Make sure you get the test kit recommended by the other poster on here and follow their instructions and you may just be lucky. I would also avoid that fish shop as they obviously have no idea!

Good luck!