hello all,
we are new to fish keeping and finally went and got the fish last night after having our tank set up for about 3 -4 weeks, all the fish were fine last night and seemed to have settled down apart from the 2 three spotted gouramis that we purchased. they were very nervous and darting all over the place, we put this down to a new tank/water/stress etc.

When we got up today the light was still off but we could make all out the fish, but by 5pm when we got home the 2 gouramis were missing!!!! we finally spotted one hiding under a piece of bog wood we have in the tank but have not seen the other all evening, is this normal behaviour, as it does not seem to be to us????
the one that we spotted had a quick dart around the tank and then went back again.
what can we do, we don't want to move the bog wood and stress them anymore if that is what the problem is but we need to find the other fish.
any ideas on this, any help appricaited, thanks

As far as missing fish go, I've had fish that I've been absolutely convinced that they'd gone, only for them to re-appear at a later stage.

My experience is that fish usually settle quickly (less than 24 hours) in a new tank if they are young, but they can sometimes be skittish for a while.

Probably just a wait and see for this one.

Fishadmin

thanks, we have come home tonight and one is out and about agian,so we moved the bog wood to see if the other was dead under there and luckily it is still alive so we are now off to buy a couple more to see if this helps them.

Great! Make sure you don't put too many fish in to start though.

You need to do the usual tests (ammonia, nitrite etc) more frequently when you add fish as the environmental balance will change in the tank.