odd fish behavior...odd aquarium situation...

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monsterz3ro

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
24
Location
Baltimore, MD
Hi all-

adding this in, as I just saw it was a sticky-

1~What type of fish is afflicted? (not sure its "afflicted", but), scissortail barbosas

2~What are your tank parameters (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, temp, pH)? Please give exact values. pH = 7.5; ammonia = <.25 PPM; nitrate = 20 PPM; nitrites = 0 PPM

3~ How large is the tank? How long has the tank been set up? 56 gallon, has been running for approximately 6 weeks

4~What type of filtration are you using? Please give the name and number (i.e. Fluval 304) and amount of gph if known. AquaClear 50 (unsure of GPH).

5~How many fish are in the tank? What kinds of fish are they and what are their current sizes? 6 Scissortail Barbosa, 1 Tangerine Angelfish, 1 (ghost?) shrimp...I forget the name...little brown/translucent guy...

6~When is the last time you did a water change and vacuum the gravel? How often do you do this? How much water do you remove at a time? Doing gravel vacuum/15% water change today...last was 1 1/2 weeks ago.

7~How long have you had the fish? If the fish is new, how did you acclimate it/them? 3 of the scissortails are new (added saturday)...other three have been in there for a couple of weeks...

8~Have you added anything new to the tank--decor, new dechlorinator, new substrate, etc.? 3 new plants (added same day as 3 new scissortails) - carolina fanwort

9~What kind of food have you been feeding your fish, have you changed their diet recently? tropical flakes - no change in diet.


So....
I'm going to be brief because I'm at work and not much time to type out the situation, but:

Came downstairs this morning, turned on aquarium lights and noticed my tangerine angelfish was at a bit of a vertical tilt (crooked when facing you front-on)...particles/debris were floating all around the aquarium (I have pea-sized gravel so I'm not sure what fish could have been kicking it up but the water looked like I had been vacuuming gravel or something)...none of my six scissortails were anywhere to be found...then I noticed them all swimming like crazy around some (what I think is) Carolina Fanwort that I just planted on Saturday...these guys (three are only a few days new to the aquarium, three have been there for a while) normally school around together, but this morning they were splitting off every which way, often times two or three swimming together/rubbing/circling each other, and doing fast, fluttering laps in/through/around the couple of groups of fanwort (which are all planted close together in a cluster in one corner of the aquarium)...even after I added food, the scissortails barely noticed...angelfish gorged himself while the scissortail dummies just kept frottaging around, and normally they are maniacs when I feed them...does anyone know what a scissortail's mating ritual looks like?

Not sure what the heck is going on in the aquarium. Just did my weekly water tests yesterday, everything was in good range...shouldn't be a water issue...angelfish had (mostly) straightened out by the time I left for work, so, not sure if I should be concerned about him or not...most concerned about the erratic scissortail behavior...looked friendly enough (didn't seem to be "nipping" each other, just, playing full-body footsie I guess?)...tried to snap a couple pictures to link but none really caught anything...

Kinda concerned...hoping someone recognizes the described behavior and can tell me that they're doing something normal, and not suffering some horrible neurological fishy disease or something...all feedback welcome/appreciated...
 
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Do the new fish have any white salt looking sprinkles on them? I am assuming you didn't quarantine them before putting them in the main tank.
Since you have ammonia, you should be changing the water more often until you can get it to 0. :) Most of us on here change part of the water every week.
 
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