Fish you extremely skittish

[Joshuakahan]

I’ve had a WC male frempongi for a few months and he’s always been a glass banger and very interactive Then the last week or so, he’s gotten extremely skittish. The slightest movement and he freaks out banging into stuff. Parameters are good, zero ammonia/nitrite and nitrates around 10 and PH is 7.5 I’ve made no changes other than adding 3 Pim Blochi around 3”. They seem to ignore each other. I’ve done some large WCs in case something snuck into my water. He has grown from 3.5” to a little over 5”. I’m not seeing any visible signs of illness either.
Tank is an established 55, but I’m getting something around 200-240g for the pims in a few weeks.
Any ideas what’s going on?

 

[esoxlucius]

I've had similar problems with chalceus and balas in the past, both I think most would agree are quite skittish species. This was in an all glass 180g in a busy room. I could hardly go near the tank without them going nuts. Then when I transferred them over to my 360g fibreglass tank their skittish behaviour stopped immediately, I mean it was like flicking a switch. I could walk in front of the viewing window, nothing, remove top panels to feed, nothing, during maintainance, not a murmur. My chalceus passed last year but I still have my three big chilled out balas.

I firmly believe tank size plays a huge part. That, and how easy it is for the fish to see shadows and other sudden outside tank movement. My 360g is obviously a lot bigger than my 180g, so that helped them, but the single viewing window in my 360g was the game changer imo. The fish are limited to what they can see, which can only help with skittish species.

Your fish are only in a small tank and they're growing, i'd expect some skittishness as they grow. You may notice a complete change in them once you move them to a bigger tank, time will tell.

 

[Joshuakahan]

I've had similar problems with chalceus and balas in the past, both I think most would agree are quite skittish species. This was in an all glass 180g in a busy room. I could hardly go near the tank without them going nuts. Then when I transferred them over to my 360g fibreglass tank their skittish behaviour stopped immediately, I mean it was like flicking a switch. I could walk in front of the viewing window, nothing, remove top panels to feed, nothing, during maintainance, not a murmur. My chalceus passed last year but I still have my three big chilled out balas.

I firmly believe tank size plays a huge part. That, and how easy it is for the fish to see shadows and other sudden outside tank movement. My 360g is obviously a lot bigger than my 180g, so that helped them, but the single viewing window in my 360g was the game changer imo. The fish are limited to what they can see, which can only help with skittish species.

Your fish are only in a small tank and they're growing, i'd expect some skittishness as they grow. You may notice a complete change in them once you move them to a bigger tank, time will tell.

Thank you,
This tank is in the garage and there’s almost zero traffic though and the pims aren’t skittish at all. I could try moving the frempongi when i get the bigger tank, but I was planning on leaving him in the 55 solo since I believe he maxes out at 6-8”
I’m wondering if the pims triggered this, he chased them around at first and then left them alone, but the skittishness started shortly after
The weather has gotten warmer, which caused the tanks temp to rise from 80 to 85, I put a fan on the tank and that’s keeping it at about 81. This is all i can think of.

 

[Deadeye]

It may just be him realizing his size. My parrot started getting skittish around the 5 inch mark. At this size, they are a prime prey item for birds and other fish, so it is now on high alert and takes everything as a threat. He would likely grow out of it as he puts on some more size.