Black Skirt Tetras freak out at Light

[Scott1980]

Hello,

I'm totally new to this. I've just started a 10 gallon aquarium which in it I have one Bottomfeeder corey, 3 Black Skirt Tetras, one gold fish, 4 neon tetras. All the fish do fine, but I have to turn the light on so the plants can live to and when I do the black skirts just spazz. They start swimming all over the place and then hide under the plants and won't come out. Not even to eat. During this time they also lose all the color and just look really stressed. Any Advice? I'm a major novice.


Scott

 

[Scott1980]

no advice?

 

[i3k]

You need to get a very dim lamp, preferably the ones where you can adjust the light little by little by turning a knob...that way you can barely turn it on and let the fish get used to the dim light and turn it up every 3-5 min little by little. If your fish stress out like this every day...you might want to add some stress coat to your aquarium.

how long have you had the aquarium running for?

 

[Scott1980]

In other words, I might have to take out the live plants for a while. The Aquarium was used and given to me by a friend. I let it run for 3 days before I added fish. Then it was just 2 gold fish. I let it run a week then added the 3 Black skirt Tetras. I've already added stress coat. I left the light off for 1 whole day and they looked wonderful like the did the day I bought them. I turned the light back on, they wouln't even eat and lost all thier color again.