this is my dad's aquarium and i'm helping him post on reddit. recently, the fishes have started to hide behind these plants and wouldn't come out when they used to swim around the tank. any advice please?
Posted by wondurless
this is my dad's aquarium and i'm helping him post on reddit. recently, the fishes have started to hide behind these plants and wouldn't come out when they used to swim around the tank. any advice please?
Posted by wondurless
15 Comments
Did you remove plants? Maybe add more plants so they feel protected within the plants
Fish are prey for pretty much anything.
They are scared.
The tank seems crazy empty, no hides, almost no plants, no structures for them to feel safe.
They dont know the people on the front of the glass are harmless. So they will hide every time someone gets closer becuase they think you are a scary animal thats probably going to eat them.
Have they always been in an empty-ish tank? They could just be stressed out by their barren landscape. Try adding some substrate and more plants. Gravel could be good because they love to pick up and clean the little pebbles.
The tank looks almost too clean for a cory & pleco – make sure you are also supplementing their diet with pleco pellets so they don’t starve. Ideally a lot of surface area on gravel & decor will provide places for algae to grow & food bits to get trapped t give them something to feed on.
That isn’t an aquarium that is a glass box with a few leaves.
Think about the size of the shadows you cast on the glass and the sound of your footsteps or talking. Those fish are in constant fight or flight mode
Most fish come out way more often if they have cover to hide in. If you feel like your entire tank is safe you go through the entire tank, if only the plant is safe you never leave the plant. I would get some more hides, driftwood, plants and make the tank look crowded.
Could it be any more bare in there??? Poor fish!
Id be scared too if I was in there
On top of what others have said, glass will create mirror like reflections, and no substrate, bright lights and no hides, these fish probably feel like see every angle as a threat. Put some sand on the bottom and a few line of sight breaks
Is that the only cover they have in the tank? Looks to bare
Come on.. really?
Tank is way to empty. So that is where they feel the safest.
This aquarium is a barren hellscape for fish is the problem. Barely any cover to hide so they are using what they have.
Everyone is attacking the tank but the fact is blood parrots are notoriously shy regardless of the tank layout.
Go sit in an empty house with no furniture and see how you feel. Now do it at night with banging on the windows and police reports of multiple criminals in your area. Do you feel safe?
Do they hide all the time or just when someone walks into the area in which the tank is located? If this is new behavior and they used to swim around and NOT hide, something has changed, such as water parameters, temperature, something ‘off’. They for SURE need a proper setup with substrate, lots more plants, some floating plants, etc. This looks more like an art installation than a proper home for fish. I have a 50 gallon where the fish population had declined and contained only a single Cory, one siamese algae eater, one black skirt tetra, and 6 dwarf loaches. Even being in a densely planted tank, the fish always hid. I didn’t see the algae eater for months! I moved all of them to my 55 gallon with a bunch of other fish and they are SO MUCH HAPPIER!!! They don’t hide now, they are all super active, etc.