My Fish Dont Swim

[Jodiem]

i have a 15g tank with cherry barbs serpae tetras and gourmis but they just hover rather than swim and they onloy hover in one side of the tank, why are they doing this?
thanks

 

[PlecMama]

Is your filter too high? I find that some of mine tend to hover in one place if the filter is set too high, presumably because they are scared of the whirl-water adventure ride if they actually get in to the current, sink it down a bit or turn the flow down for a few hours to see if that changes anything.

I actually don't know anything about those particular types of fish and it might just be what they do. Some of my fish just seem to hang out rather then swim. The goldfish are all over the place but the danios tend to congregate in the floating weed and stay there.

I'm sure someone here will be able to advise better.

 

[jarcher1390]

gouramis can actually take oxygen from the air as they live in pools they have a special organ which allows them to do this and they like to stay at the surface as for the other fish they probably conserving the energy riding the current like bird of prey. also more water can pass over their gill and can extract oxygen from the water at a quicker rate
Jonny

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How long have you had these fish in the tank?

 

[DarkEntity]

Cherry Barbs and Gourami arent know to be active swimmers. When i started fish keeping i kept Gouramis and they always just hovered about, Cherry Barbs are the same.

 

[WaterHead]

what are your water parameters?

 

[jourdy288]

Are they the only fish in the tank?

 

[Jodiem]

the fish also have 2 loaches and 2 guppys with them the water is really hard but all the other stuff is fine, i got the gouramis on monday and the other fish have been there for about 5 months.
thanks for your replies

 

[col748]

How often and much do you feed? Fish are more active if hungry looking for food!