bouncing flicking fish!

[millym]

hi
what can make fish flick apart from obvious diseases???? have noticed quite a few of our fish are flicking every now & again(no particular species - theyre all at it) our water params are fine 0 ammonia0nitrite,20 nitrate (always this our water supply) ph 7.8.(again has always been around this) have had a very good look at all fish & cant see anything like whitespots,fungus etc etc??
should i be worried??? are they just itchy???tank been going for nearly a year did have a disaster a couple of weeks ago-our tank sprung a leak, no not a leak a waterfall!!! we had to put all our fish in a tiny hosp tank for a few hrs (nearly 30 fish in a 1 ft hosp tank was a bit 'busy' in there 8O 8O )while we siphoned the rest of main tank out & my other half dashed off to buy a new tank.every towel,tshirt,sweatshirt,sheet in the house was used as well + mrs frantic mopper - me to stem the tide!!!!!!! (day from hell we live in a 1st floor flat). but we saved nearly 4 buckets of water & all our gravel from the established tank & got the fish back in just as soon a we could......dont knowi f this is relevant??? some of our fish looked a little stressed for a day or 2 after this trauma but soon settled down & thankfully 2 weeks later theyre all alive despite their experience( & mine!!!!)
any suggestions most helpful - dont want to medicate 'blindly' but did put some melafix in after the tank trauma as we did have to net them all to transfer them & just thought it might help.

[Allivymar]

Wow. Talk about stress, for both you guys AND the fish! Good work on saving em

But yeah, it's possible the stress of the changes has brought out ich, although its not definite. One of the signs is flashing and itching, and since your parameters are good I tend to wonder. I'm not sure about the hillstreams, but the others would handle the high temp ich treatment; I might go that route (after checking about the hillstream) as then meds won't be an issue.

[millym]

thanks ally,
but can fish have ich & not show any actual white spots??? ive been staring at all my fish intently (scaring them too i think) trying to see even the slightest hint of spots/fungus etc but cant see anything on anyone. can they get them in their gills or somewhere that you might not see???
thanks

[Allivymar]

Yep. If ich happens to infest the gills only, then you won't see them (unless you hold the gills open and look in; not sure what it looks like tho - all my guys that have had ich had it visibly).

Its obvious something is irritating them. Ich is just a guess tho. Its hard to say without definitive information like microscoped scrapings for example. If it gets worse, you may want to consider medicating. I'd hold off for now tho.

[peterp]

Hum, this is getting worrisome my African cichlids are doing it too.
They all look healthy and are eating everything in sight like crazy, including my finger ouch, the smallest Lamprologus ocellatus seems to have the biggest teeth.

My water in the african tank is
Temp 79 degrees,
PH 8.0,
ammonia 0,
nitrites 0 ,
nitrates 10,
GH 179
KH 107.4

It only seems to be the african tank, my gourami/angel and beta tanks are fine. All my tanks get a weekly 1/3 water change.
I also noticed the fish in the LFS's (2*BigAl's PetSmart, PetCo) doing it a lot lately.

Maybe I'll try upping my temperature for a while hate to do anything if there is no reason for it.

[lex]

My 40 gal African tank has all the same readings peterp's does. 'Cept my pH is 7.9 but that's not biggie, and I do 20% water changes each week, the tank is about 6 months old. A couple of my fish keep flicking and scratching, but I can't figure out what's wrong. I have tried heating things up but it didn't seem to help any, just caused more aggression. I know the tank isn't overstocked, and other than when the temp was up, there isn't an overwhelming amount of aggression that would be stressing the fish, everyone is still under 3.5 inches. I have treated for internal parasites since I dont' see any on the outside, and I'm really careful about overdosing. My 10 gal community is doing fine with a few guppies and a small leopard cat. *shrug*

[peterp]

bump

[Menagerie]

For the cichlids--I swear they do that to make us nervous. My fiance and I have had various cichlids for years and they all seem to do that, except the dwarfs. Never treated, never seem an outbreak of ick (except once on ONE fish that was very stressed).