a downsize and a suddenly overstocked tank

OK I will start with the lesser of the 2 problems. I was looking at the little table I had by 20 gallon BW tank on the other day and noticed the top was starting to bow. Well I look at the sticker on the back and it says not to put more than 150 pounds on it. Well, I have no otehr place to put the tank so I drained most of the water and put it on the floor while I run to the store for what I thought was a new stand. Well, I needed a stand that also has a cabinet so I can put stuff in it.(I am a pack rat and keep almost everything) The only stands I could find to hold a 20 gallon tank were waayyy more than I am able to spend right now. So, since the f8 puffer is the only fish I have, Idecided that I would just downsize the tank and beef up the stand a bit. So I got a 10 gallon tank, and after straightening out the stand by screwing a 2x4 into it, everything is in goos shape. I may have to change water more often now but that is OK.

So now to the big problem. My mom got rid of her tank, and has kindly dumped off her 4 guppies and 4 cherry barbs on me. She put them all in my 20 gallon FW tank when I was not home. There are 2 female guppies and 2 male guppies. The females have IP so bad that I may have to euthanise. The males seem OK, but the fins are a bit tattered, I'm pretty sure it's not fin rot though. I accidently dropped my QT tank a couple weeks ago so I don't have 1 right now. I can't get another tank so I am at a loss of what to do. I have meds for IP and am treating my whole tank now that IP have been introduced to my tank. The LFS does not take guppies or any small schooling fish, they only want bigger fancier fish that they can make more money off of. They won't even take them for free. So the fish currently in my FW tank are the ones in my sig, plus 4 more guppies and 4 cherry barbs.

How badly OS am I? And is there any way I can make this work?

Yea I know I was pushing it before, that's why I'm freaking out now. At least I have had it overfiltered. I got 3 filters running a total of like 350 GPH or something like that. I'm not too worried about nitrates because I was dosing them before, so I will stop dosing and hopefully the fish load won't push nitrates too high. I'm more worried about the fish getting stressed with having so many in such a small area.

I don't know why my mom got rid of her tank. She said she gave it to one of her friends. The friend didn't want the fish though so I have them.

I am at a loss of what to do. I have no money for a new tank, even if I did, I have no place to put another one, except on the floor. School starts in a week so hopefully somebody there will want the fish. They are all weldors though, and none of them have a tank that I know of...

There is no place to even put a stand for a tank. My apartment is too small and I have too much stuff.

The 10g is for my f8 puffer anyway. I tried a guppy with him once. The guppy lasted about 15 seconds before I had to separate them.

Aussie_hippie_2 said:

Just feed them to your f8 then. :devil:

Click to expand...

I thought about that, but 2 of the guppies have IP so I'm not going to risk feeding IP to my puffer. No LFS will take them, the next nearest LFS is 25 miles away, and I don't have the time in my life to go that far. I think I am going to euthanize the 2 famle guppies with IP though, they are in bad shape, and I mean bad shape. They look like they got stepped on or something, I don't know if I can save them anyway. One of them has it's spine bent at a really awkward angle, I don't know how it moves. I really don't want to kill them without at least rying to save them though, but I also don't want to risk spreading IP to any of my other fish.

How easily does IP spread?

The male guppies look fine except for the tattered fins, not fin rot, they just look like they have been nipped, probably from the betta she had with them. Luckily she didn't give me the betta, I don't know what she did with it. The barbs look like they are in perfect shape. They are pretty fat and healthy.