Are They Posing And How To Change.

The fish, will still be aclimatising too there new environment. They will still be shy and adjusting. This is quite common, if it continues for more than one to two weeks then i would start to be concerned. In the dark there is less chance of being spotted by anything nasty so its safer to explore.

Yes definetly. i have had a few male apistogrammas who see there reflection think its another male and go all defensive.

Im sure it like you said when the lights are on they are tightly packed in to a corner not realy moving i would still say this is catious behaviour and there getting used to the light and suroundings as they grow with convidence inbthe new setting the light will be less of an issue and they will move like they do when its of.

Hi Sue,
I have real and synthetic plants. The real ones are, something beginning with E , they grow very fast and up to 100cm and I suppose they are about 40cm at the moment.

The I have quite a few silk plants the tallest  is about 40cm. I have 3 large rocks and a v large one with 3 large tunnels through it and one smaller rock. I have one coconut cave. I also have two largish pieces of bogwood.

They are not hiding. At the moment with the tank lights off they are in the middle of the tank bickering and chasing each other. It is just when the lights are on they go to the front left hand corner of the tank in a tight group.

Again they do not seem to be hiding. But they do get a strong reflection of themselves and am thinking that they assume their reflections are part of the shoal, if you understand me. They will not move from that spot whilst the lights are on. Even when I fed them this morning the only reaction was from the Silver Tips and boy did THEY go for their food.

The Lemon Tetra  could not be bothered. They are very lively when the lights are off.

Thanks Sue, will be getting the platies later on this afternoon.

If the water has zero nitrate, you might want to post in the planted section to ask about that. I'm not very good with plants but I'm sure I've read that with a very low nitrate you have to add it to feed the plants.

But don't quote me on that 

The platies sound nice, they should be a good contrast to the tetras. Now you've got fish we are all  waiting for photos in the gallery section 



I know the instinct is to try and save as many fry as possible, but take it from someone who has had livebearers, the best thing to do is resist all instincts and do nothing. I've had platies, guppies and endlers over the years.

Hi. I've recently taken a plant out of my tank and it has noticeably affected the water flow. Which now reaches the far end of the tank sufficiently to create a bit of turbulence. And now some of my cardinal tetras swim up and down the short, barest of the tank walls. Your lemon tetras' behaviuor sounds very similar. So perhaps you might want to look at the flow in your tank.

By the way, I have to add nitrates to my tank at water change to keep my plants healthy. 

Water flow strong enough to flatten your plants is quite strong. 

I think a lot of filters have a means to adjust the water flow. I know both my Hagen external filter and the small internal filter that is in my QT both have a way of reducing the flow. On the external, it is a lever that looks like part of the pipe sealing paraphernalia. On the internal it is a dial on the top of the filter that isn't at all obvious it is a dial - I only discovered it when I managed to turn it by accident!