Strange looking black widow tetras

[densbutterfly]

My husband and I have a 40 gallon aquarium, we set the tank up, got the water conditions almost perfect, good pg, and used fish water from another tank to start with. After we had the aquarium for several weeks, we added 5 black widow tetras, their color was great, they seemed fine. We have since added 6 bala sharks, some gouramis and added 4 clown loaches. We lost a gourami out of the blue the other day, one day he was fine, next day he was dead. Now are tetras seem pale in color and dont have much of an appetite, and 2 of the 5 have bigger bellies. Going to test the water for ph, ammonia, and nitrate when my husband gets home from work. Also we did have ick, treated that with a multi cure three times, once every 3 days. Now have a carbon filter in to remove residual meds. The tetras have been in the tank for a month now. I just went back to look at the tetras, their color is good, go figure. They are eating too. I guess the question is, do fish have less color when resting?

 

[gadazobe]

Using water from another tank isn't sufficient for cycling the tank before you add fish. For a 60 gallon tank you've added a lot of fish to start with, also the fish you chose are going to get much too big for the tank eventually. Most probably your tank is now cycling and the fish are showing signs of stress because of this. Check for ammonia and nitrite and do a water change if the levels are high.

 

[densbutterfly]

I should have mentioned we also used water ager for the new aquarium, the tetras were in there to their own for weeks before adding anymore fish, also our tests on the water have been good since we added them, also since we added these other fish, we added the sharks then waited for a few weeks before adding the gouramis , then again, waited before we added the loaches. Every water test we have done, showed ph from 7 now down to 6.8, little or no ammonia or nitrate.