oops, new to fish

[Jinks]

Hi , im new to fish hobby here.. I seem to have put in a cave i made before the silicone cured properly. Umm.. Around the same time my two larger Jack Dempseys ( about 2-3" ) were fighting it out, and the more aggressive one got whooped!

Now he just kind of hides / sits / looks sick ( he just kind of looks like hes almost floating, like he could croak any minute ) up in the top corner and has a very pale colour. ( this one was very dark and very dominant a couple days ago ). Now im guessing he is sick! But when i feed them he gets a large portion of the food then goes back to being chased and just floating there. He still floats around with all his fins extended half of the time which i know is a good thing. oh yeah, im feeding them cichlid pellets and blood worms mostly and some flakes.

Is this some sort of normal behaviour or have I poisoned my poor fish :( He seems to be acting a bit better than this morning, but still very strange compared to the last week or so. These fish seem to have been growing rather fast.

Any help or pointers would be great. Or you can just make fun of me for being stupid and putting silicone in my tank hah.

thanks

[firetank]

hey, everyone makes mistakes!!!!:)

(i presume the tank is properly cycled???)

have you taken the un-cured silicone out?

how big a tank is it as JD's are known to be very aggresive, its probably hes had the worse end of a territory battle(poss??) and is still recovering.

do you have another tank you could transfer him to in the meantime??

if you do, i know there are a fair few hospital chems you could put in to aid his recovery(melafix??)

antything else guys.....:confused:

[hanif]

yeh i agree it would be best to put the fish in a seperate tank until it recovers properly a 10 gallon will do with a cave to hide under, make sure the water chemistry is the same as the big tank or this could lead to more stress. hope he gets better.

[Jinks]

yeah its a 35 gallon tank.. i dunno all the other fish seem fine which is why i think the water cant be that bad.. because he was the strongest.. ahh so if its just a territory thing thats cool.

[firetank]

youll need to think about a bigger tank, as they grow you will end up with more violence, until you have less than the 4 you have now mereckons............

[Jinks]

yeah i figure ive got a year or two! we'll see.. the larger ones seem to be growing rather quickly.. ive noticed them growing in the past week.

[SBee]

Woohooo!!


Jinks' JD's appear to be A-OKAY....



better than that....

they appear to be spawning!!

I just noticed them doing their happy little mating dance a couple hours ago.... :D

[firetank]

excellent...

maybe it was just a lovers tiff then.....:p