# two adult firemouths, sitting on the bottom



## panopticon (Mar 11, 2007)

Yesterday I bought an (alleged) sexed pair of adult Firemouths. The LFS who sold them to me said he got them from one of his customers. One is 4-5" including fins, and the other is about 2.5"-3". The LFS guy said he thought the smaller one was the male, but that would not have been my guess except for the fact that the bigger one is in perfect shape, with no wear while the smaller one is missing a good bit of its tail and pectorial fins. (I figured more chance a male would be beat up).

Anyway, overall I'd say the fish look well. No sign of disease, color is good. I let their bag sit for 40 minutes before releasing them into my 78 degree water. This was a little over 24 hours ago. I made caves and such for them to hide in (and they share the tank with nothing threatening: 2 small cories and 4 serpae tetras). Since then they've been mostly hiding, either together or (mostly) separate. The odd thing to my eyes (and these are my first new world cichlids since I was a kid) they are sitting on the bottom, just swaying their pec fins. When I fed this morning, they didn't eat and they ignored the mini cichlid pellets that were sinking wight in front of their faces. They are in a quiet area with little traffic to scare them.

Is all this normal adjustment behavior? The sitting on the bottom is scaring me a bit (fortunately, they sit on their undersides and not on their sides or anything). I just found the smaller one wedged behind a rock and the back glass.


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## chrispyweld (Dec 20, 2005)

Normal for new cichlids to take a couple days to adjust. Even more so in my experience with adults that have already been moved once recently like yours.

Give them a few days with the lights off to get used to their new surroundings.


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## panopticon (Mar 11, 2007)

...I'll cut back on the lights and cool my jets.

Thanks.


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## Nova Bill (Apr 29, 2008)

my two firemouths did the exact same thing for about 5 days. they turned out fine. give them some time.


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## panopticon (Mar 11, 2007)

Thanks for the info. I hope mine turn out OK, too. They are still cooling on the bottom in their separate lairs. But they've got the whole weekend here at the office alone to relax, so hopefully on Monday they will be out wowing me.


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