Dear Ormet.
I am sorry for being 4 days delayed on approving your post (always has to with the first post), I have been too busy the last four days, but still its too long.
But now your post will show as it should.
And welcome to the forum
I would say, that it is probably likely that it is this acclimation behaviour, that they swim up and down a little. The fish on the photo does not look uncomfortable at all, – seems to be settling in and begin to show colours.
What I find with phoenicurus is that they are not so difficult a species.
Of course, a pair will always be more ‘harmonic’ than a group, – if there are two males, one will be the dominant and the other will be showing less bright colours, most likely, – sometimes a ‘second’ male will have to retreat to the back of tank, making you wonder if he is even there. They dont harm each other, but a ‘second’ and less dominant male can suffer in the long run.
And if you want to breed, you need to seperate a pair, and leave this pair on its own. Provide a cave, and a little shelter for the female, and its very likely they will breed, or attempt to.
It sounds to me like you are doing fine, – feeding frost is not in my experience very helpful, – I doubt they will take it. Tubifex can be used, I also do it in periods where I need some extra food, – but I use it really careful. Like one little worm and best to see it being eaten. The thing about tubifex is that they are very fat as far as I know, – and they hide, so they may not get eaten at all, and will only pollute the tank. With the small tanks and the absence of pumps etc, we need to be careful about how much we feed.
Kind regards Helene Schoubye, admin