Moarning the death of my bala sharks......

[jpappy789]

The problem with running things by the people at your pet store is that they want to sell you fish. The fact that they sold you that number of fish for a tank that size shows that they aren't the best people to ask. The members on this forum are very knowledgable (usually ) and have a lot of experience actually keeping fish.

As far as having your tank set up for a month before putting any fish in, the bacteria that break ammonia into nitrite and then nitrate (ridiculously simplified explanation of the nitrogen cycle) would have all died out because they had nothing to feed on.

If I were you, I would rehome / return as many fish as you can, properly cycle your tank (instructions on this site) and then research what fish work best for your tank plan and skill level. You will definitely enjoy your tank more in the long run IMO

Probably not. Bacteria can go months without a food source; they just go dormant. If it were dry for that period of time I would expect the bacteria to be dead, but a month without food should still leave most of the colony in tact. However, the explosion of new fish was probably much more than the colony could handle, hence the water quality problems. I see balas, a pleco, silver dollars, a RTS, tiger barbs, australian rainbows, a cory, a glassfish, and swordtails all added to the same tank within a couple weeks of each other. That's the biggest problem.