Spooked-out cichlids

[Kelly Beard <apistogramma@home.com>]

The scene: 26 gallon tank, some rocks, no plants save for some
sagittaria, 2 20 watt bulbs.
The inhabitants:

2 Crenicara punctulata (male & female)
1 Laetacara curviceps (male died some months ago)
2 Papiliochromis altispinosa
1 Biotodoma cupido

other:
1 neon tetra
1 pleco
1 oto flexillus
3 corys

It seems that over the past few months, the cichlids in this tank want
to do nothing but hide.  The curvicep is the worst, but most all of them
look at me like I'm going to eat them or something.  Another weird thing
is that some of them (the crenicara and biotodomo, mainly) will become
active right around the time they want to be fed.  Otherwise, they take
on a dark color and sit at the bottom - sometimes so motionless that the
fins don't even mve.  As far as I can tell, they appear to be healthy. 
Temperature is fine, KH is fine, nitrates, phosphates, etc are all
great.  I've been scratching my head on this one because these fish
should know me.  I've had all of them for several months.  They get fed
twice a day.  Only the Cupid has enough courage to come to the top to
get food.  The others wait for it to fall down before they'll eat.

I guess I could get some dithers, but I thought I'd wait and get some
opinions first.

These fish haven't always been this way.

-- 

Kelly Beard, Cat IV (on sabbatical)
President, Allanti Cycling Club
Innovative Computing Corporation


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