The archers don't come out!

So, yep, after more than two weeks from the arrival of the rainbows and the Vallis, the archers are stubbornly hidden in the darkest corners of the mangroves: they keep staying there all day, even at feeding time, the only apparent exception being when the lights go off, when two (!) of them shyily come out to slowly munch the food the rainbows can't get, 'cause it floats or it's too big. The thing is, the two species do share pretty much the same hideouts, e.g. at night, and I never saw any evidence of direct distress caused by the rainbows to the archers: they simply peacefully pass in front of each other, like all well-educated fish should do. Still, this behaviour clearly started about 48 h after the Boesemani went in; the only other changes occurred during that time was that the water was slowly turned into fresh, in order to give an easier startup to the Vallis. I have also reduced the exposure to light, covering parts of the tank with black sheets of plastic, but to no avail. Another situation when the archers finally appear more confident, and indeed jump out of their hideout and go swimming below the filter output, is when I start changing the water, and the water level goes down: they always reacted in this way, and apparently still do, and I have no clue why.

The rainbows instead are just happy: the males are starting to get more colour, two of them in particular feature a stable orange rear half. Today morning I was at home, and before the lights turned on one of them was actually the long-term expected blue & red! I therefore took a few quick shots, shown below.

The striking colours shown before the lights went on today morning. Not bad for such a young specimen.

The same male with a female.

The two most forward males.