Fish laying on bottom of tank

[aupstone]

Hi,

I recently moved house and had to setup back my tank from scratch. Its been about a week now, but just in the last two days i've noticed that several of the fish look a bit listless and spend most of their time laying on the sand. I've got a few goldfish, a couple Gouramis and some mollies. The goldfish seem to be the ones most affected.

The tank has good filtration and aeration, and the temperature is usually between 75 and 80F. When I feed the fish they look lively and come up to the surface for food, but after that they just return to the bottom.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Andrew

 

[Alien Anna]

Hi Andrew,
what do you know about cycling a tank? When you said you started it up from scratch, did you mean you didn't keep the filter bacteria alive? If not, your tank is cycling and you need to test for ammonia and nitrite as a matter of urgency, and do a 15-20% water change immediately.

Please follow the link in my sig and read my article on "Avoiding New Tank Syndrome" because I think that's what you've got.

Secondly, I'm a little concerned to read the word "goldfish" in the same context as "gourami". It's generally not a good idea at all to mix cold water and tropical fish together - particularly goldfish since they are phenomenally messy and produce a ton of ammonia. Once we've got your tank cycled you need to look at the sort of fish you have.