weird behavior-re: why does he look so weird

[sunnygirl]

ok this is about the african i posted about earlier (why does he look so weird?) i believe hes a cobalt blue tiger. anyway, i had posted that his lips looked bigger. well now hes hanging around the top of the tank alot, and hes shaking his head back and forth- like hes saying no. anyone know whats wrong. i know thats a sign of illness, ive seen alot of mollies doing that at walmart:mad: . but i have no idea what it could be. help!:(

[PumaWard]

It's called Shimmy and mainly effects Mollies and Goldfish, but can effect any fish. Shimmy isn't a disease but rather a warning.

Your water conditions arn't correct, that's why he's doing this. You really need to check your water for ammonia and nitrite then make sure that the rest of water perameters (pH, gH, etc) are correct for this specie.

[sunnygirl]

thanks. but why arent the others doing it?

[PumaWard]

They may not be stressed as much as him or the conditions might be okay with them. I used to have a sailfin molly with my other mollies and he was the only one that shimmied, turned out there was some ammonia in the water. It's kind of like he's an indicator that something may be wrong :)

[sunnygirl]

ok. i checked the ammonia levels and its at .5ppm. huh. i was thinking about getting one of those alarm things, but i guess i already have one. i just got tests for kh/gh, and nitrite. i'll check those also. ph is about 8.2.

[Tightdog1]

many a times shimmy is caused by ammonia being in the tank, at least with my tanks and fish.

[sunnygirl]

ok. ammonias gone, and so is shimmy. but my k/h is at 20 degrees, and my gh is at 23 degrees. hes got his color back and is displaying again and all the others seem happy. should i worry about the hard water or leave it alone? any suggestions on how to soften the water without sacrificing ph?:D

[dave76]

if its an african I dont understand why you would want to soften the water if anything you should go the other direction

[sunnygirl]

i dont think i want it any higher than 20 degrees kh, and 23 degrees gh. thats pretty high. in the test kit it says that normal parameters for kh are 6- 10 degrees, and gh is 8-16 degrees.

[Tightdog1]

africans like the hard water tho it shoulkd be fine if you leave it. if anything make it higher but not necessary.

[sunnygirl]

so do you think i should keep using the lake salt? they dont seem to be suffering from the extreme hardness. i know they may not do so well if i make too much of a change, and i have two orange shouldered peacocks in there ($$) who have the best personalities, so i dont want to risk their health in any way.