First larger sized tank...

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matt_zak

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May 23, 2014
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Congrats on the daughter.:cheers:

Keep a very close eye on your tank. It sounds like the new barbs had a bacterial or protozoan issue, and both are very contagious to other fish in the tank. To be safe, I would not add new fish to this tank for a couple weeks. Perhaps the store, who seem to understand things, will "hold" the barbs with this in mind. If you can set up a QT, it is a wise investment these days. I've been through this.

Byron.
Thanks Byron,

Yeah the manager of the LFS is actually the owner. I was glad that he was honest with me and didn't lie about their tank getting infected too. He plans on keeping them in quarantine until I get my 6. He's not going to order them until next week to make sure both of our tanks are good to go. So by the time I pick them up it'll be 10+ days from now. Hopefully my last 5 will still be nice and healthy.

Matt
 

matt_zak

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May 23, 2014
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Well, I lost one more barb a couple days ago. I returned the remaining 3 barbs today. Told the LFS that I'm sick of waiting for one to die every 3 days. I have a credit now for all 11 fish. I tried salt and medicine treatments and neither worked. I've also been doing water changes to no avail. I picked up the 24watt Green Killing Machine UV today to hopefully get the bad bacteria out of the water. Since at this time I have nowhere to put a quarantine tank I figured it couldn't hurt. The plan is to let it run until the tank is fully stocked and then maybe only run it if I notice a sick fish.

Since the Tiger Barbs are all gone I am going to look at better options to put with a Firemouth and Blue Acara. I rushed into it in hind sight last time and will count this as a lesson learned. It looks like larger Tetras (Bleeding Heart, Buenos Aires, etc...) and Giant Danio are good options.

Matt
 

Byron Amazonas

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Jul 22, 2013
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Well, I lost one more barb a couple days ago. I returned the remaining 3 barbs today. Told the LFS that I'm sick of waiting for one to die every 3 days. I have a credit now for all 11 fish. I tried salt and medicine treatments and neither worked. I've also been doing water changes to no avail. I picked up the 24watt Green Killing Machine UV today to hopefully get the bad bacteria out of the water. Since at this time I have nowhere to put a quarantine tank I figured it couldn't hurt. The plan is to let it run until the tank is fully stocked and then maybe only run it if I notice a sick fish.

Since the Tiger Barbs are all gone I am going to look at better options to put with a Firemouth and Blue Acara. I rushed into it in hind sight last time and will count this as a lesson learned. It looks like larger Tetras (Bleeding Heart, Buenos Aires, etc...) and Giant Danio are good options.

Matt
UV has very limited effectiveness. Whatever problem the barbs had, it was likely internal, either protozoan or bacterial. UV can not deal with what is inside the fish, only what is in the water column and then only in the water passing through the UV. All of the water in the tank does not pass through a UV unit unless you have a complete circulating system where all the water leaves the tank and runs through the UV prior to returning to the aquarium, and during this, only fresh water is entering the tank.
 

FreshyFresh

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Yep, hopefully what was going on was internal to the barbs. I'd be hesitant to add anything new for some weeks just to be safe.
 

matt_zak

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May 23, 2014
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UV has very limited effectiveness. Whatever problem the barbs had, it was likely internal, either protozoan or bacterial. UV can not deal with what is inside the fish, only what is in the water column and then only in the water passing through the UV. All of the water in the tank does not pass through a UV unit unless you have a complete circulating system where all the water leaves the tank and runs through the UV prior to returning to the aquarium, and during this, only fresh water is entering the tank.
Ya, I just want to make sure that the water is as clean as possible. It might not clean 100% of the water but it should get the majority of it just like a filter.
 

Byron Amazonas

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Ya, I just want to make sure that the water is as clean as possible. It might not clean 100% of the water but it should get the majority of it just like a filter.
This is a very questionable premise. For my part, I tend to follow authorities like Neale Monks who maintain there is no real benefit to UV in freshwater, and money can be better spent. There are several who feel UV can actually be detrimental especially in planted tanks; it will remove some essential nutrients like dissolved organic carbons [much the same as activated carbon will]. Thrown out for what it may be worth.
 

matt_zak

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May 23, 2014
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Been awhile since the last update. I've added 4 Buenos Aires Tetra and 1 Diamond Tetra. That is all my LFS had of each. Once they get more in I plan on getting 1 more Buenos and 4 more Diamond. Then maybe 5 Congo Tetra and then some cory's for the bottom. Once all of them get settled in then I will probably get a Yellow Acara to finish off the tank.

-On a side note, my daughter's little mini aquarium decided to start leaking last week. So, we also have 2 White Cloud minnows in the 56gal for the time being. They try to hang out and pester the Buenos Aires all the time. The Diamond seems to be in charge in the tank atm.

Matt
 

Kannan Fodder

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What kind of mini aquarium? And what, exactly, started leaking? Am curious because I have several minis myself.

How are the tetras doing? My attempt at keeping tiger barbs years ago was a disaster. Granted I was a rank newbie, and the local pet store at the time sold everything under the premise "Oh they'll all get along fine." Riiiiiiiiight.
 

matt_zak

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May 23, 2014
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What kind of mini aquarium? And what, exactly, started leaking? Am curious because I have several minis myself.

How are the tetras doing? My attempt at keeping tiger barbs years ago was a disaster. Granted I was a rank newbie, and the local pet store at the time sold everything under the premise "Oh they'll all get along fine." Riiiiiiiiight.
She had an Aqueon MiniBow. It's just a little 1gal tank with a HOB filter. It took a fall off of her dresser a few months back and it think it got cracked on the bottom and we didn't see it. Luckily her minnows have survived all of that.

The tetras are doing good. The Buenos Aires were real nippy so I went to a store that had some and added 2 more bigger ones. Now they are a lot less nippy with the other fish and each other. I also added 7 Emerald Green Corys and ordered 5 more Diamond Tetras. I will only be doing 2 schools of tetra. Six each of Buenos Aires and Diamond. That should be better than 3 small schools. After I add the 5 last Diamonds I will decide on a Yellow, Electric Blue, Ellioti or Port Acara.

Matt
 

matt_zak

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May 23, 2014
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Update:

The tank is now up for sale. I got laid off from work last Monday and it's looking like I'll be going overseas for work or another long cross country move. Either way I have to cut down on weight. It sucks because the fish were doing great and the tank was well established. My fish start just got in the electric blue acara that I wanted too. Sucks. Once we get to where we're going I plan on starting up a new tank and will post on here how it goes.
Matt
 
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