My fish look unhappy

[twentyleagues]

I would put the rocks against the back to allow for more defensable spots for the fish. Right now if they run to hide their attacker is able to follow without having to break off pursuit. The fish will be able to get in the smaller nooks between the rocks and glass. Another issue is the rock itself reef rock is sharp and when they are running or hiding they are probably cutting themselves on it. It's not a terrible thing to use reef rock I did it in one of my African tanks years ago too. Texas holey rock is better for them, smoother and bigger holes to hide in.
My recommendation is to move the rock back and maybe stack in a little more. I think you could probably feed a little more also. And agree with above may have to target feed that pleco after lights out.

 

[twentyleagues]

Also you said nitrates are around 30ppm. When? Right now, just after a waterchange, just before a waterchange? It does matter. If they are 30 on Monday and you change 60% of your water and the end up at say 10 to 20 after that's not too bad. But if they are 30 after that's not so good. I try to keep nitrates as low as possible just because in the wild they are usually at ultra low or even undetectable levels. My pond was an issue so I set up a drip on it which has it at about 20 to 40 by WC day that is exceptable to me mostly. I may try doing 2 WC per week and see if that works better or maybe increase the drip amount. My personal goal is to keep all my tanks 20ppm or lower. Some say 20 is to high and compared to the wild it is.

 

[Nick Park]

Are there’s not enough already. I see a fish hiding between rocks. Also I don’t want my fish to run out of space.

In my experience, Africans need lots of caves and tunnels. Piling rocks on top of each other creates that.

 

[GrapeGuy]

The pleco is too stressed with all the cichlids im sure. I have tons of cichlids and plecos been through all this. There are a lot of ways to create hiding places like tiles against the glass is one example but I get it, aesthetics are important gotta figure something out. GL

and I Have to say some plecos even with a ton of hiding spots wont eat in a tank like that.

I have a 55 gallon community tank. Do you recommend I move him there if I can catch him?

 

[GrapeGuy]

Also you said nitrates are around 30ppm. When? Right now, just after a waterchange, just before a waterchange? It does matter. If they are 30 on Monday and you change 60% of your water and the end up at say 10 to 20 after that's not too bad. But if they are 30 after that's not so good. I try to keep nitrates as low as possible just because in the wild they are usually at ultra low or even undetectable levels. My pond was an issue so I set up a drip on it which has it at about 20 to 40 by WC day that is exceptable to me mostly. I may try doing 2 WC per week and see if that works better or maybe increase the drip amount. My personal goal is to keep all my tanks 20ppm or lower. Some say 20 is to high and compared to the wild it is.

Should I not be worried that the water changes will stress the fish?

 

[GrapeGuy]

For the pleco I would recommend adding a piece of wood to the tank. Not all plecos eat wood but the majority love to attach themselves to it and hide in it. Granted you'll have to boil the wood first so it doesn't affect the PH of the tank. Also you'll want to Target feed the plecos at night with the lights off, plecos target food by sense of smell and taste so it takes them a bit to find it in the tank, along with them being mainly active at night. As for the cichlids I agree with everyone else saying they need more hiding spots. Cichlids are highly aggressive/territorial so anything that can help break lines of sight helps to minimize aggression between tank mates. It would also help to increase the amount of water changes on the tank to eliminate that nitrate level.

I do have a piece of wood inside the tank but they don’t seem to go on it. And thanks, will feed them at night.

 

[GrapeGuy]

Pleco looks too skinny from the angle of the picture of it. Can you get better picture of the snowballs belly? And IMO PH of 8 is on the borderline of too high for snowballs.

Sorry, my pleco always hides behind the filler during the day but how’s this?

 

[Magnus_Bane]

Should I not be worried that the water changes will stress the fish?

It's going to have to be one or the other. If you don't increase your weekly water changes eventually you will have fish start dropping like flys, but if you do increase the amount of weekly water changes you could possible lose the weakest/stressed fish but end up making a cleaner/less stressful environment in the long run.

If you have a quarentine tank to house the beaten up fish in I would move them there and give them some stress coat treatment while working on getting the chemical levels of your main tank under control along with redecorating it with the rocks being push back towards the back of the tank. It would also help to make caves out of the rocks so the fish have more places to hide/defend.

 

[duanes]

I do 30-40% water changes every other day, my nitrate goal is 2-5ppm, and this is normally achieved with that sort of regime.


And believe high nitrates are much more stressful than water changes, which would greatly improve water quality.
Some people may disagree, but I believe high nitrates are the major trigger of bloat in hard water species, and HLLE in soft water species, kept in hard water.
The bacteria that cause these maladies thrive, and become more virulent in alkaline water with high nitrate.

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

If you want to continue to keep the snowball in there, add more airstones, aeration and dont bring up the ph any higher, target feed it if its belly is still sunken in and you just got it it might have parasites. Angle still showing me its too thin. Just make sure you have pipette or tong to driectly place food in front of it.

I agree with duanes on nitrates testing. Thats why I ran out of my nitrates on my API master kit the quickest than any other test while the common pet stores stock ammonia as a stand alone test kit. Not nitrates.

Good luck there