[tcastille]

i need help, i recently moved and set up my tank, sad to say lost all 30 of my africans. But now I am setting up a new tank, well it has been set up for 2 weeks now, and my new fish approx 6 small cichlids, i wil list below were doing great, 3 days ago i bought some frozen brine shrimp and fed some to them. But now i am noticing that they are all either hiding , laying against the rocks ,some are twitching, some are like scratching them selves on the rocks, and swimming erratic, they tend to use their whole back body to swim not just their tails But they are all looking weak, I tested the water, everything tested good. I have had africans for the last 4 years, but have never seen this and need help.
my new tank is a 55 gallon, i used the same rocks from my old tank, and the same (fake) plants.
here are a list of my fish:
1 labidichromis caeruleus
1 pseudotropheus zebra
1 melanochromis johanni
2 cynotilapia afra's
1 metriaclima estherae

 

[Robin]

Hi,

Have you got a good quality declorinator? If so then right now do a 40% partial water change on the tank. Add salt, (sodium chloride, table salt without additives) at the rate of 1-2 teaspoons per five gallons. Take note of any changes in the fish's behaviour after the water change. If these symptoms appeared directly after a water change then don't do another water change until we're certain the problem isn't in your tap water.

The symptoms you describe could be due to a number of things but since the tank is newly set up and it sounds like all fish have been effected at once I think there may be a problem with the water. I know you said the water tested fine but in a newly set up tank that can change quickly and test kits can be wrong. Please post the test results and the type and age of the test kits used. Also: what did you do to cycle this tank?

Robin