My red devil will not come out of hiding. I have had a few people try to help me out, but they think I need an expert to assist me now. It has been carrying on for too long and I have never had a fish take this long to get over something. He wont come out, ever.... I have to put food in the pipe to get him to eat. I even put 2 convicts in there to try to him to come out, but he wont, maybe I should try a 'stupid' fish that will keep going in his territory? Or should I put another RD in there to get him out of his funk?

I miss my old, fun RD... comes to the top to beg for food, chases me around the tank like a mad man...now he is a scared little guy... Please help me find a way to get him to come around!

your RD is still not coming around huh Lutino? I was hoping you had seen some improvement by now. I have a couple of questions I never got settled before...(i was trying not to steal that other thread completely )

when was the last time your RD ate?
how old is your RD?
what size is your RD?
how long have you had the RD?
what size tank is your RD in? and was in? and why you moved him? what was the tramatic event that occured?(if there was one you know of)

its all good, I wanst getting replies too much from the other thread and it was because the subject was completely different, so I made a thread just for him.

I feed him once a day, and I do this by putting food directly in his PVC pipe that he wont come out of. He seems to eat it, as long as it doesnt float out and up, cause then h wont touch it. He will not come out to eat, period.

He is maybe around a year?

He is around 6 inches, more or less

I have had him around 4-5 months

I had him initially in my large tank, he has been moved into a 55 gallon alone, and moved out one other time and back. This last time is when he began acting like this. He has never acted strange from a move before. He would get adjusted and go about his business. I didnt do anyting strange, he was out the water a very short period of time, and I acclimated him properly.

I had him in his 55 gallon and had a small section blocked off for my baby sev and salvini. We went out of town, before we left, we fed him and he was his normal joyus self, digging, swimming, chasing, etc...


We came back, were only gone for 2 days. Came back and he had dug a hole and ripped the divider up and the babies were on his side. Instead of chasing, he was hiding from them. I still dont know why.. I couldnt get him to eat so I put him in the large tank. He perked right up and began swimming around, digging and bullying my JD and my Oscars. Got my Oscars VERY stressed and I also had to move to a new place. During the move, they were in coolers, and once I got the tanks set up, I put him in the 55 gallon, and the other fish in their large tank. He is alone and has been alone, and wont come out..

I know moving can stress but I had no choice obviously, but I was very careful and he seemed fine. All my other fish were perfectly fine, even the lutino. I mean I guess he has been moved a few times, but so have the other fish. I had to quaratine my lutino cause he had swim bladder from the RD stressing him out. Once he got better I switched the two out and RD was in his tank. He began acting strange before everything, and even through moving him, from 55 to big tank, to a cooler, back to big tank he was perfectly fine!

wow, this is quite the puzzle.

So you mentioned previously that your water tests are good. And your RD is eating daily. That is a good base.

I remember you said you had driftwood in the tank, and you were conserned that it may be negatively affecting the RD. Have you taken the wood out? It's a long shot, but RDs like harder water and maybe the driftwood is bringing the PH down lower than your RD likes. How are the convicts doing since they have been in the 55 for a while?

Another longshot is I have found that if you give a fish too good of a hiding place, it will stay hidden and not get used to coming out as much. Maybe you an give less of a hiding place, but a place it can retreat too. I may even be tempted to remove almost everything and just float a bunch of plastic plants to see what happens.

This is the type of interaction you may have one day with your RD (if we can get past this skittish issue:

RD normally explore the whole tank.... if it found a place and stays there
for longer time, it does show it found a comfortable place to live.... and will
protect the area, spawn and care the offsprings in there.... is it still taking
some foods???? if it does, you will gonna miss the old happy days but it will
stays to the place where it is comfortable....

I have had a similar situation twice,once was with brutis,when i moved him in another tank,he would hide behind wood,i removed everything from tank,after a few weeks he was back to his evil self..lol

Second was a more recent situation,i have a evil brycron and had him in my community tank,he beat up the tank,so only thing left for me was to move him into my chocolate cichlid tank,i just recently brought tank for choccy as a solo tank,he was very timid after moving choccy in there, would always hide behind a plant,i added bycron and after a week choccy was back to normal,where as brycron would jump at the slightest movement and hid alot, so i thought its only me here at present,so theres not much human traffic past my tanks anymore,so i got a shirt on a hanger and hung it up near the tank when i wasnt around, now it seems to have worked,where before id appear he would go skits,id feed but he wouldnt take it,until i left room...now he takes food fine and isnt as skittish,it took around a month for both to get comfortable

Another idea,just go and get something like a small shoal of large bueno aries tetra's or something similar,that i recon would draw him out and about,

nelly wrote:


This is good, spreading the creative ideas. thats what it takes sometimes.

that is the kind of relationship I use to have with my RD, he was fun. Used to chse me around the tank, and beg for food, SOO active. He doesnt even dig anymore...

@nelly, I will try the tshirt thing. It is like he is skittish. He has always been in a low traffic area, but it seems it has gotten worse with any movement he sees.

@paul, I hate this, I know that he truly is happy exploring, but this is just crazy. he just stares at me with that one eye...spooked...

im moving everything out of the tank today...

k, I moved everythign out. Found black fuzzy on my driftwood, so thats gone too. I added a few plants to give more coverage. He actually BIT my finger too! Guess I got too close to him.
He is out, cause he has no choice, but was so skittish that he ran into the glass pretty hard.

I changed the water, to get some newer water in there, hopefully it gets a little harder now, fresh water never hurt anyone!

lets see how this goes.. hes been kinda nippy at the other fish too, hope he comes around and maybe ill give him his hiding spot back, lol

hope ur RD will be back to normal soon.

mylutino wrote:

Sounds good mylutino! I think everything is moving in the right direction. Lets keep the positive momentum going.

how long should i keep the pvc out?