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Scratching

968 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  cichlog, 
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I just recently set up a malawi fish tank (58gals), now with 16 fish. I noticed that most of them are scratching on the substrate. I added fine coral sand on ordinary aquarium gravel. I read that fine coral sand causes gill irritations on fish. Is that true? All the stats (ph, kh, gh, No2, No3, ammonia) looked ok. Fish seemed happy, anyway.
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Yeah most of the time it happens in new tank and after water changes, as they adjust to the water parameters. Do be sure to use a high quality dechlorinater. Are you adding anything to your water in terms of buffer recipes?
We refer to this action as "flashing" and it's natural behavior for African cichlids
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