Bio-Spira - adding more fish inside 24 hours?

[pedzola]

Ok this is a long post, but PLEASE read it and help me out!!

So last night I went to the LFS and bought a whole bunch of fish to add to my new 75g tank.

15 cherry barbs (very small!)
4 clown loaches
2 yoyo loaches (although it turns out that one is actually a botia robusta that prefers colder water... thought it was just a pattern variation)

Anyway... so I've got 3 clown loaches and 2 yoyo loaches that I want to add to this tank as well. Last night was a bit of a logistical problem. Since I had to go between town A(my place) to town B (LFS) to town C (new tank), I didn't want to make my fish wait in the car, and opted to pick them up later.

So the new tank is at my parents house, and of course I didn't get out of there until very late, and had no time to go from town C back to A to pick up my fish and bring them back to C.

So I thought maybe I could add them tonight instead.... even tho the bio-spira says to add them all at once.

What do you think?

The other thing is that all the fish look very healthy except for a couple of the female cherry barbs have a funny looking gut. I thought maybe some kind of parasite, but I've never seen cherry barbs before, and since it was only the larger females that look like this, I thought maybe it's just a "feature" of the fish instead of an illness. They all seemed to be swimming healthily and eating fine after being added to the new tank.

So I'm not really sure if I should use the new tank as a quarantine and wait a month before I add *my* fish, or if I should just dump them in ASAP as per the bio-spira directions for adding a full load of fish.


Ok... so... thanks for reading my wordy post. Here's a summary.

1) Can I dump my 3 clowns (2-3") and 2 yoyo's (2-3") into the 75g tank this evening around 6? I added the other fish and biospira last night around 7:45. Basically the question is - is the "excess" bio-spira bacteria already dead from lack of fish waste?

2) SHOULD I put my fish into the tank, even if I can, or should I wait and use the new tank as a "quarantine" for all the new fish?

3) Do female cherry barbs have funny looking guts, or do mine have parasites and I should bring them back to the LFS and get a school of something else instead?



Thanks!!!

 

[budrecki]

1) Can I dump my 3 clowns (2-3") and 2 yoyo's (2-3") into the 75g tank this evening around 6? I added the other fish and biospira last night around 7:45. Basically the question is - is the "excess" bio-spira bacteria already dead from lack of fish waste?

You could add more fish today, but you may extend the cycle (1-2 weeks instead of 1-2 days).
HOWEVER.....

2) SHOULD I put my fish into the tank, even if I can, or should I wait and use the new tank as a "quarantine" for all the new fish?

If at all possible, use the new tank as a quarantine for 4 weeks. Yes, that long. The chances of that many fish being disease/parasite free from your lfs is VERY LOW!

3) Do female cherry barbs have funny looking guts, or do mine have parasites and I should bring them back to the LFS and get a school of something else instead?

Could just be pregnant, hard to say without a photo.

 

[pedzola]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm pretty anxious to put my existing fish in the bigger tank, but I don't want to risk their health.

The 4 weeks of quarantine time is not a real problem. (just annoying!)


As for the cherry barbs... they are very small. I don't think any of them are bigger than 1/2 - 3/4." I would be surprised if they are full grown enough to get pregnant!

I read that the females of the species are a litle chubbier... but a couple of the larger ones look like they have an almost square belly, where the edges of it look more like a worm under the skin than any legitimate bodily structure. But like I said, I've never seen these fish before yesterday, so maybe that is normal? It is hard to observe such small and active fish. I'm assuming even harder to photograph.

Like I said, they seem to be acting normally. Swimming around, eating flakes, etc. So I dunno.

If it is a "worm under the skin," will the fish die? Will it get loose into the water and get into my loaches? (that would be TERRIBLE). Maybe I will try to catch one of the funny-bellied females tonight and bring it back to the LFS and see what they say. If it is diseased maybe I will bring the whole bunch back and get some cardinal tetras or something similarly-sized instead. (gotta keep that bio-spira bacteria alive and well!)