Shy Or Is Something Wrong?

[arabballin]

About a week ago i added 3 blue gouramis to my tank (2 females and 1 male) along with

2 black mollys
6 tiger barbs (the barbs are too small for the gouramis to even care about them so nothing to worry about here)
3 bosemani rainbows
1 tiger pleco


My lovely females are doing great and are very active and eating well and everything but my problem is my male.
He was fine in the beginning also nicely active and playful but now he seems to be different. He is always hiding now, and just sits at the bottom of the tank with out much activity at all. He wont come up for food but i have been netting him into a smaller tank to make sure he eats but he still eats very little. Hes the big guy of the tank so nothing can really be picking on him.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what it could be. Is it his personality? or is he sick? what else could it be?

My tank is 30 gallons and my stats are
ammonia 0
nitRITES 0
nitRATES 10-20

Any information would be great, thank you

 

[sylvia]

Move him to the smaller tank permanently if possible (only if it's cycled - or just grab a big handful of gravel from your established tank when you put him in). Moving him in and out is stressful and will only make things worse. Also, he is either sick or something in the tank is bothering him - you'll be able to eliminate the latter by moving him out.

I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions but his loss of appetite is a bad sign. Three-spots are generaly very hardy gouramies though - so he still might recover. Does he look bloated at all? Try feeding him a few daphnia or deshelled green peas just in case it's just constipation or something along those lines. Are his fins clamped? Any red or white marks on his body or fins that shouldn't be there?

I doubt that he is simply shy. Male three-spots, especialy when they are the largest in a tank and there are females around, will dominate it - not cower in some corner

BTW, do you mean he actualy rests on the bottom or just hovers near the gravel?

 

[arabballin]

Sometimes hes hovering real low and sometimes hes resting on it which is what alarmed me the most cause i know thats not a good sign.

He shows no bloating or anything unusual. Ill try feeding some peas, it will probably be good for all the fish as i haven't fed them greens in a while. Maybe i should try feeding different food, right now im only feeding a real high quality flake and some pellets. The girls love the flake though so i thought he would to. You think that could be it?

 

[sylvia]

Flake is fine for them but sometimes it can lead to constipation if it's fed to regularly. Most gouramies realy need a little vegetable in their diet as well. To be honest, I doubt he is suffering from constipation but I wouldn't want to suggest you do anything else if I don't know, or at least suspect, what could be wrong.