paranoid firemouth

[wantsome8]

i m new to keeping these fish and i m trying to raise one for show i have him in with 4 synodontis petricolas and he wont eat all he does is hide if i go near the tank he freaks out i was thinking maybe a female or another cichlid would make him feal more secure any advice

[andruboz]

how big a tank is it? mine was really upset in the 10 gal hospital tank.
he was a beast in a 55. attacked everything. put him in a 20 long and now he's a chicken. loves to hang out in his ceramic pipe/cave. if i'm sitting down across the room, he'll come out and push the algea eater or crayfish away from his cave. but if i'm standing up, just to walk to the kitchen, he's back in the cave.
at feeding time he eats the blood worms that land near the cave until i walk away, then he cleans up the rest of them.

a female might give him a reason to be agressive to the other fish, but i dont know if it will make him happy to see humans.

[wantsome8]

well he s in a 29 gal but he s gonna go into a 50 eventualy. i had some driftwood in there and all he did was hide i tried putting some worms near the cave but he would nt come out. i took the wood away and he seems to be swimming around more but when i come in the room he runs for corner the of the tank and lays on the bottom he ll probobly come around. i never new these fish were so timmid

[BLOOPY"03"]

Firemouths are known to hide alot. I had 3 of them in a 55g before and when i was around the tank they would hide. But when I would walk away they would come out. but definately get a bigger tank than a 29g. It's kind of small for a Firemouth.

[O-man21]

can we get some puntuation please?

That seems like a really small tank for a firemouth. If your moving it to a 50..better do it soon. I've had them that constaintly hide except when feeding time is around.

[Tyler718]

Originally posted by O-man21
can we get some puntuation please?

How about proper spelling!:D

Actually, I feel a 29g is kind of small. I have 4 Firemouths. It started as two and they hid a lot. I added two more and they are out all the time now. It might be a freak circumstance.

[NDferro]

you need to add some more active fish and they will be come more active my firemouth did the same tell i added some kribs and rams then he started to just swim around happy as ever