Rummynoses acting weird

kylith

I have a 120L tank with 1 dwarf gourami, 5 rummynose tetras, and 2 sterbai corys. I know that the tetras and corys should be in larger groups and originally they were but some have died. I will be moving the tank in the next couple of months so I don't really want to be fully stocked when I'm doing that.

Anyway, the tetras have been in a group of 5 since before Christmas, but recently they've started acting strangely and become a lot more skittish. Before they would come eat from my fingers but now they just hide under the driftwood, won't even come out to eat, and are very pale. I haven't added any new stock in months, there are no threats to them, they're in a quiet room, the only change is that my third cory died. I literally went away for 2 days and came back to terrified fish.

There are no visible signs of injury or disease. Any ideas?

ph 6.5
Amm 0
NitrAte <5
NitrIte 0

joe90

I have seen my dwarf gourami giving my tetras a hard time, in the end I had to take him out as he was causing to much trouble. Just watch your dwarf gourami and see if he is chasing your tetras.

kylith

Coincidentally I lost my betta yesterday so I moved the gourami into his 40L. It's quite nice to have a fish visible in there (Talyn was the laziest betta ever). Still no sign of the tetras coming out of hiding. Thinking of heading to Seahorse to pick up another 5 tetras and some assassin snails.

Bit of a pain cos I'd wanted to get a couple of pea puffers when Talyn went, but so it goes.

kylith

Now I have a question about the gourami. He keeps getting bits of plant and trying to put them in the top left side of the tank. Is he trying to build a nest? Do I need to reduce the flow from the filter?

kylith

Big tank (120L) is now 10 rummynose tetra, 2 sterbai cory (to be bumped up in a week or so), 2 assassin snails, (which don't seem to be touching the ramshorns). Tetra are still very skittish, thinking I might need something for the upper level of the tank to make them feel more comfortable. Thinking killifish maybe, or possibly endlers, though I'm not gone on the idea of livebearers, it seems to be a bit of hassle controlling their population.

Small tank is now 1 male dwarf gourami, 2 nerite snails, 1 apple snail. I'm slightly concerned that the tank footprint isn't big enough for the gourami; it's a tall tank rather than long and the dimensions are 40x30x30, give or take a couple of cm.

fungun

have you put in some polyfilter?

Its something i tend to try when i have symptoms with no obvious cause in case of other contaminants in the water

kylith

I'm not familiar with that. What is it?

They seem a bit more relaxed, and came closer to my hand when I was feeding last night. Hopefully they'll be eating from my fingers again soon.

Tested today and the results were Ph 6.5, Ammonia 0, NO2 (nitrite) 0, NO3 (nitrate) 5.

Gourami seems to be doing ok in the smaller tank. He's busily building nests, and picking on the snails.

fungun

http://www.thereeftank.com/compare-filter-media/poly-filter-pad-12-x-12/reviews/
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4335

the thing i liked was that it turns different colours based on what is being filtered out so i could see that i had copper contamination in my tank