Where to buy fish?

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ManEatingShrimp

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Jan 28, 2012
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I have read a lot of people say not to buy fish from chainstores at all and that you have to quarantine all new fish. I would like to buy some cherry barbs for my new 90 gallon but the best place to buy from is petco. I cannot set up a quarantine and the only other tank is a 10 gallon lightly planted.

I am going to move the neon tetras and cherry barbs I have in the 10 into the 90 and plan on turning the 10 into a shrimp tank. Should I put the new fish in the 10, watch them for a week, then put them into the 90? If I do get a sick fish will this contaminate the tank and make it unsafe for shrimp/ other fish?

I have luckily never experienced a sick fish but I plan on getting 8-13 barbs and don't want to make my tanks unhealthy.
Also how many fish should I add at a time to the 90? Its got a lot of plants and 2 eheim canisters but ammonia readings have only been 0 for 4-5 days and the tank is 2.5 weeks old. Only fish in there right now are 3 SAEs and some ghost shrimp
 
? You have neons and some cherry barbs in the 10 right now? How long have they been there? I would keep them in a qt for 4 weeks before adding them to the 90, just do water changes on the 10 to keep the water clean. Then I would move the fish from the 10 to the 90 and buy my next batch of fish and use the qt for another 4 weeks. I say this because I just spent $30.00 in meds for cyanobacteria (blue green algae) in my 36 BF It is much less expensive to dose a 10 gallon than a 90 gallon. As long as you don't have to dose a copper based med the 10 should be ok for shrimp after you're done adding fish to the 90. If you have the space you might want to pick up a 10 just for qt and a hob filter that can run on the 10 or 90 to keep ready for the q tank then you'd be ready to go any time.
 
also, did you do a fishless cycle to get your 90 ready for fish? Sense it is heavily planted you may have the beneficial bacteria in the tank Have you had a nitrite reading yet? You have to wait for the nitrites to show up and peak and go back to 0ppm, and then you should get nitrates if the plants don't use them first. With such a small bio mass it may take a while.


with a 90 gallon tank I would definetly have a qt for treating a sick fish, unless you get something like ich where you have to treat the tank it will be much less expensive and easier on the fish to do frequent water changes on a 10 gallon tank.
 
ManEatingShrimp said:
I have read a lot of people say not to buy fish from chainstores at all and that you have to quarantine all new fish. I would like to buy some cherry barbs for my new 90 gallon but the best place to buy from is petco. I cannot set up a quarantine and the only other tank is a 10 gallon lightly planted.

I am going to move the neon tetras and cherry barbs I have in the 10 into the 90 and plan on turning the 10 into a shrimp tank. Should I put the new fish in the 10, watch them for a week, then put them into the 90? If I do get a sick fish will this contaminate the tank and make it unsafe for shrimp/ other fish?

I have luckily never experienced a sick fish but I plan on getting 8-13 barbs and don't want to make my tanks unhealthy.
Also how many fish should I add at a time to the 90? Its got a lot of plants and 2 eheim canisters but ammonia readings have only been 0 for 4-5 days and the tank is 2.5 weeks old. Only fish in there right now are 3 SAEs and some ghost shrimp
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Buying from the chains are ok. Ive done it and I also buy from my LFS.. To be honest Ive had just as many issues be it the Chain or the LFS. I think the main reasons people suggest to not buy from the Chains is to support other business like the LFS.

It doesnt matter where you got your fish. Quarantine is the smartest thing to do. Period. Ive got both a 10 and a 20H quarantine tanks. One I medicate the other is for new fish to stay in for a while.

Shrimp dont get fish diseases and the opposite is true as well. so if your fish get ich your shrimps wont. BUT if you treat the tank with Copper it will stain the tank and will leach and can harm shrimps.

If your tank has only been set up for 2.5 weeks and hasnt cycled youve got a ways to go before you should add any crazy numbers of fish. With a 90 gallon tank and a Cycle with fish you probably dont want anymore then 10 to 15 fish total, and you dont want to have shrimp in a tank thats going through a cycle. Its pretty hard on them and most time will kill the shrimp. SAE are also not the best fish to have in a tank thats going through a cycle.

If you get new fish and your going to QT them it needs to be more then a week. I do at least 2 weeks. Normally if the fish have any issues you will see it in that time.

I know some prefer fishless cycles, Ive got no issues with cycling a tank with fish if its done right. When done right your not hurting fish and no losses. As mentioned before if your tank is only running for 2.5 weeks.. it still needs to cycle. That can take as long as 2 months. So dont over load and get fish in that are very hardy and able to deal with the cycle.

Also.... Last bit of advice given to me 30 years ago.

There are 2 types of fish/aquarium keepers. Those that have had issues and fish with diseases, and those that will have fish with issues and diseases. Its not a matter of if it happens its when it happens.
 
The 10 is already cycled and 8 months old but I changed the substrate 6 months ago and got the neons and barbs around that time. The 90 had high ammonia and nitrites for about a week with cloudy water but now has 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites with clear water so I believe it is done cycling. The filters were bought used and I added an used hob filter pad into one of the filters when I first set it up.
So would it be safe to use my set up 10g for a qt or should I use a bucket with filters? If i get a sick fish I dont want to have to drain my 10 gallon and have to start over or something like that.
Also how quickly can I add fish to the 90 without overpowering the good bacteria? Like 4-6 barbs a week or 2-3 every 3 days...?
 
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I usually go to my LFS or local auctions (twice a year), but I do shop the chains occasionally and I am extremely picky about what I buy from them. There are certain stores to avoid and others to go to often. I think you need to be careful no matter where you buy them from and QT is one of the best ways around it.

I hope that this helps!
 
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