Fish Stil Skittish

[dmacch]

I've had my fish for about two months now and they still haven't gotten used to the water change or my movements around the tank. They are still eating good but lately when I walk into the room they all swim into a bunch and turn dark. The only time they are less skittish is when I raise the temp to 90 deg and add salt. Once I slowly bring temp back down and eliminate salt they go back to their skittish ways. They're not even happy to see me first thing in the morning at feeding time.
I have nine fish ranging in size from 3 - 5 inches in a 55 gal bb tank, nitrate,nitrite and ammonia are 0. Ph 8.0 before and after aging. I do 50% w/c daily. I don't know what else to do.

[M0oN]

have you checked to see if your heaters are leeching electricity into the waters?

You may want to invest in a grounding probe, worked for me.

I've noticed white shirts seem to scare fish off for some reason...

They could also have flukes or somthing external goign on stressing em' out...

[dmacch]

One thing I forgot to mention is that thier mouths are opening and closing really fast. what does that mean?

[1977]

I was dealing with the same problem recently, drove me nuts. I finally moved the tank to a different spot away from windows. What I did that I think really made the difference though was to mix things up. I had 6 medium's in a bb 55 and I added four more of similar size from another tank, I'm telling you it worked great and the problem went away completely! It seems these fish are moody, you have to think like a discus! Try adding a couple more fish or switch things up if you have more than one tank. Try to keep the sizes of the discus close though. Be patient and you will solve this puzzle eventually. Took me 1 month!

[M0oN]

If they're gasping then you may want to add some airstones to the water...

I've been told by fish guru's on here that discus don't do too good at younger ages unless they're in groups of 10+...

There's a lot of things to try...just use your best judgement, if the tank is really low to the grow that could be a reason, fish hate seeing things above their water levels...

[Scrappi_tt]

Moon is correct, If the fish are gasping, this means that there is not enough dissolved oxygen in the water. He's also correct about the tank being lower to the ground. ;)