Small Harem of Steel Blues. No one is moving.

[ntgCleaner]

Hello all. Long story short, I had to set up a smaller tank for my single male steel blue apisto. He was getting a bit anxious with the introduction of new, bigger fish.

I got my old 10 gallon out of storage. Cleaned it, washed it then put some clean leftover black sand in it. I used water from my old tank to jump start it and a filter from that tank as well. I found a pair of female blues at my LFS and decided to grab them since I will be putting the male all my himself in this tank. I brought them home, dripped the females for over an hour and then gathered all three blues and placed them into the tank.

The male immediately went under a rock and got as far back in the corner as possible. The females kind of did the same, bit without as much urgency. What is bothering me now is that the male is not strutting around the tank. He's been sitting the same spot for almost a week now. I've only seen him out once and when I got closer, he hid back under the rock. The females are out and about sometimes and they squabble sometimes, but neither of them go under that rock and neither of them bother the male.

I'm wondering if there's anything I can do. Will this male snap out of it? Is he on the verge of dying? Should I get some slime coat enzymes? Of course I would like the male to choose a mate and continue their brilliant colors, but I'm afraid something's not right. When I see him, he looks very healthy. Not at all clenching and not uptight. He's not breathing strangely, or swimming strangely. I moved the rocks today to put a few plants in and he seems like a healthy fish. He just doesn't move!

Any ideas?

Here's a pic of the male (back) and one of the females (front) when I was moving some stuff around.

 

[Jonm]

You might want to try adding floating plants and/or dimming the lights. The tank looks fairly bright.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

You might want to try adding floating plants and/or dimming the lights.

Good idea, I'd try that, they do look fairly unhappy. I'm not convinced she is a female, but the "female" is showing some fin erosion, so I might up the water changes.

cheers Darrel

 

[ntgCleaner]

I've actually just purchased them and I believe it was more of a fin nipping problem. Her(his) fins should grow back in a month or two. Do you think they are at least the same species?

I have turned the lights out for now until I can give them some more cover. I will be going out today to get some tall grasses and possibly some more Amazon Blades. Thank you for the advice, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[slimbolen99]

See if you can't find some oak leaves at a park or somewhere they don't use herbicides/fertilizers. Put a huge wad of them in there -- that will give them tons of places to hide in.