Kissing Gourami Sat Bottom Of Tank

[NewToFish1989]

My tank has been cycled under a week and slowly stocking my tank. Currently I just have 2 kissing gourami's and 2 blue gourami's in a 160 litre tank. The blue gourami's are fine, active and very playful.

But my 2 kissing gourami's are showing no physical illness such as white spot or clamped fins as when they do decide to swim, swim fine but one is laid on the far right of the tank and the other, on the far left, they are still moving to feed and come up for air. There's been no aggression.

Is there anything to worry about? Had them since yesterday.

Here are my set up

Tank: 160 Litres
Temperature: 77F
Ph: 7.6
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5.0ppm

 

[rmiller]

How long have they each been in the tank?

 

[NewToFish1989]

How long have they each been in the tank?

Not long, only got them yesterday, swimming around now but zoom back into hiding, I'm guessing their shy and haven't fully settled in?

 

[jpchin]

whenever fish are laying on their side it's not a good thing.how long did it take to cycle the tank? or did you just start cycling a week ago? i didn't understand. 160 liters is about 42 gallons so you're not over stocked with the 4 fish you mention. did you do a good gravel cleaning after the tank cycled? and a big(50%+) water change might be in order. also are you using api liquid tests? if so when you do the nitrate test you must shake the second bottle at least 2 mins to get a reliable result. nitates of only 5 in a fresh water tank sounds low to me. i would repeat that test. if you're using strips they are very unreliable so i would get the api liquid test kit. if it were me i would do a 50% water change right away making sure to treat the water with conditioner and also temperature match the water as close as possible. fresh water always helps.

 

[rmiller]

When you brought them home, how did you acclimate them? How did that fish look in the tank at the store?

 

[NewToFish1989]

Just turned the light off and there active now

If low nitrates were a issue, wouldn't it effect my blue gourami's though? As they are fine. I did acclimate them for a full hour, adding small amounts of tank water every 8 minutes and I did shake the nitrate bottle 2 throughly, my betta tank is the same and he's nice and active.

My tank finished cycling last week, was cycling for about 5-6 weeks, it did stall and did a 50% water change and got it back on track.

Well the store, they were in rather small tanks anyway and hovered.

 

[rmiller]

I believe at this point it's just a matter of allowing them to settle in and get used to their new home. Just be sure to watch them closely and report back if anything else comes up. Of course also keep an eye on your parameters to make sure you don't have a mini cycle.

 

[jpchin]

Just turned the light off and there active now

If low nitrates were a issue, wouldn't it effect my blue gourami's though? As they are fine. I did acclimate them for a full hour, adding small amounts of tank water every 8 minutes and I did shake the nitrate bottle 2 throughly, my betta tank is the same and he's nice and active.

My tank finished cycling last week, was cycling for about 5-6 weeks, it did stall and did a 50% water change and got it back on track.

Well the store, they were in rather small tanks anyway and hovered.

low nitates aren't bad it's just that a reading of 5 seemed a bit off to me so i was questioning whether you were using a strip test or liquid test. you stated that you shook the bottle for 2 minutes (you can get a low reading if you don't do that) so your test should be accurate. did you do another water change? whenever you have a tank problem a water change is a good place to start.

 

[NewToFish1989]

Update: woke up this morning and they are out and about and are fine Think it was just a matter of them settling in.

 

[Fishfur]

One thing you'll learn as you go along, fish have other needs besides clean water and food. They like stability too. So they can be stressed by almost anything, and moving to a new tank is as much a stress to fish as moving house is for humans.

So it's usually good to allow at least a day or two for new fish to settle into new housing, provided water parameters are good and no obvious signs of illness are present, which you noted were not. If after that they don't behave normally, or do not eat, then it's time to worry about health issues.

Some fish are a lot more sensitive to stress than others too. Danios are likely to show no signs, a khuli loach might hide for weeks, especially if he hasn't got lots of friends to hang out with. They're all different.