Fin Flickers! ? !

[noteworthy]

Hello,

I bought some head n tail light tetras and they seem to be healthy but...sometimes they just sit in the water still then start flicking all their fins out in the water. Is something wrong with them or are they just working on their fin 'muscles' ? They are rather young fish.

I bought the fish yesterday and acclimated them by floating for 20 minutes then adding a cup every 6-7 minutes - 4 times.. then net them out and put into QT..

The LFS has their aquariums at 73-75 and I run mine around 78-80.

I just took some water out of my 30 gal, seeded filter media and some ornaments out of a cycled tank.

These fish seem very terrified if anything is near the aquarium. When the light is off they seem more at ease also... are these fish traditionally low-light? like shadows? My wattage is between 1-2 wpg and I have an ornament they can hide in from the light. Yet they don't hide in it much.. 1-2 might hide in it but that is about it.

 

[mhaynes01]

well i would be lieing if i said it was normal.

but if everythings fine in the water.

but i think that keeping fish is futile because we dont know how they if there sick we can see but we cant feell

also what part of texas do u live in

 

[noteworthy]

close to abilene

I'd love to have a 55 or 75 gal tank really cheap but my wife says "Nothing Larger than the 30!" bah... I think I need a big tank.. not a bunch of little ones

 

[mhaynes01]

if u dont mind me asking how old are you

 

[smilla4]

I don't know much about them, so I googled. A couple of sites said that they like more indirect light and places to hide. I put one of the links below - the light info is under "care information". I don't know much about the site or the tetras, so I can't verify the accuracy of the information, but it seemed sound enough to me.

http://www.fishinthe.net/html/fishguide/fishguide_fish.php?FC=125&nl=&nt=1

I don't know if the fin flicking is because they're stressed b/c the new environment/too much light, or if that's tetra-like behavior. (assuming all water parameters are good)