[miocevicd]

I started out with a 10 gallon tank and had 10 tiger barbs in it as well as a pleco that has gotten pretty big. I knew that they were going to get bigger and I planned on getting a bigger tank. so i finally got a 55 gallon tank and set it up and bought some more fish to go in it. I ended up getting 4 electric yellow cichlids, 1 convict, 2 small blue zebra cichlids and 2 larger blue zebra cichlids, 2 small plecos, two other fish I'm not sure what they are as well as 5 tiger barbs but the guy at the LFS gave them to me for free (tigers barbs and the 2 larger fish) since i have bought quite a few things from him. I will attach some pictures so someone might be able to tell me what they are. I ended up adding the rest of the tiger barbs to the tank and they get along fine. im up for suggestions as far as if i should add something else to the tank and what i should do with the 10 gallon tank. maybe move some of the barbs back to the 10 gallon tank and add something else in the 55? or leave everything in the 55 do something else with the 10? or add more to the 55 and set up something else in the 10? any suggestions are welcome.

(Edit: Photos removed per Member request - AD)

 

[Nilet699]

Wow them pics are HUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGE! I had to zoom waaaaaaay out to see them!

Anyway..........Nice tank........
what lighting are you running on it?

as per your question regarding the barbs and the 10G. No, i Definitely would Not put any back into the 10G tank.....its Way too small for them for any period of time!

from your story im guessing the tank is brand new set up and had all them fish put right into it? That would concern me a little as the tank hasnt had any time to establish the bacteria needed to keep your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels in check. Are yopu testing for these btw? What are the numbers?
Added to which you have no live plants in the tank to help with these, only plastic from what i can see, and so i would be even more concerned.
You can help this along btw if you grab some gravel from the 10G, put it into ladies tights, and put this in the 55G as it lives in/on surfaces etc within the tank and this will help boost the growth of it in new tank.

I cant guess on fish compatability etc from what you've got as cichlids really aren't my thing, but i would defo want to find out what the 2 unknown fish are, and consider in the future NOT getting fish you dont even know the names of, never mind the needs!

Added to the above, are you aware of your water parameters with regards to ph, gh and kh? these are very relevant when deciding upon stocking your tank, as different fish need different types of water in order to maintain long term health.

films Dl'd now........good luck.......and post us as much info as you can!
Oh, and more normal sized pictures! :-D

 

[miocevicd]

sry about the pics ill try to get smaller ones up. as far as the tank, its set up and there is one live plant in there for now (will get more soon). they have been in there for a little over a week now and all the water levels are good. i will add more decor soon to give them more hiding space.

 

[miocevicd]

and the light is a marine-glo blue bulb

 

[miocevicd]

****the two fish that i was unsure of are gouramis...i ended up calling the guy at the LFS and he told me what they were

 

[Nilet699]

What type? Whatever they are though, they are Not a good mix with the tiger barbs for sure, and likely not with most of the others too!
Normally;
gouramis- slow sedate peaceful
TB's - fast, active nippy semi aggressive.

Depending on their type though....they MIGHT be able to go in the 10G. You'd definitely need to know the EXACT species though. This LFS guy doesnt sound too great btw.....

 

[miocevicd]

one is a honey gourami and the other one is a dwarf

 

[miocevicd]

here a some good pics

 

[miocevicd]

as of right now the water levels are:

Nitrate is between the 0 and 20
Nitrite is 0
hardness 75
Alkalinity between 80 and 120
pH is right about 7.2

ive been monitoring it for a while now and will continue to as i add plants

 

[Byron]

I'm sorry to say you have some problems with the stocking, which I will explain.

All fish have specific preferences when it comes to water parameters. WP refer to the mineral hardness which we term GH (general hardness) and the related bicarbonate hardness (KH or sometimes Alkalinity), and the pH [whether the water is acidic or basic]. Temperature is also a WP but we can control that. So first, you should determine what comes out of your tap. The GH and Alkalinity should remain much the same in the aquarium, so the numbers given of GH 75 and KH 80-120 presumably fro the tank water are probably close to the tap. These numbers must be in ppm, so the GH at 75ppm is roughly 4 dGH, which is very soft. And here we come to the first problem.

The rift lake cichlids you have are very hard water fish. They will not be healthy in such soft water. I strongly suggest you return them ASAP. They are also not compatible with any of the other fish mentioned, so this will solve that problem too.

The Tiger Barb, gourami, pleco are all soft water fish, so they will be at home in your tap water. Plants are a good idea, but here the light is a problem. The plants will not last long under this blue light. You want a fluorescent tube with a more balanced spectrum of red, blue and green light. We refer to this as Daylight, and tubes with a Kelvin rating between 5000K and 7000K will provide this. Around 6500K is best, and you can buy these in hardware stores for a few dollars. What type of fixture do you have? There are T8 and T5, they each take different type tubes so we need to know which. If you look on one end of the blue tube it will (should) say.

Byron.

 

[miocevicd]

Thanks for the good info Byron. I'm new to this hobby (about 4 months).

I'll respond backwards to your post.

The lighting is a Hagen Marine-Glo T8 24" 20W 650 Lumes (the Kelvin rating is blank so not sure what it is, I've been trying to find something but haven't ran across anything yet will keep looking). I did read somewhere that this is a good bulb to use in combination with one of the other ones (Flora-Glo 2800K, Sun-Glo 4200K, Life-Glo 6700K, Aqua-Glo 18000K, and Power-Glo 18000K) depending on what you are trying to establish.

Now as far as the stocking,

I get all of my fish from the same LFS and whenever I go there I make sure to talk to the owner (who own another store across town). He seems to know quite a bit (which I would hope he does since he owns/works at a fish store) compared to some of the employees. I asked him about the WP when I was buying the fish (which he guarantees his fish other then death due to aggression). What he told me is that all of his freshwater tanks are filtered/cycled through the same system so all of the fish there have "just about" the same WP. He also told me that the fish he buys are bred in very similar WP and the reason being that this allows him to basically stay in business due to being able to sell his fish to just about anyone and guaranteeing them. Now obviously, yes naturally the fish would probably be happier in those WP, however they are used to these WP and I've had them for a week and they are all acting fine and look happy. I have quite a few more things in the tank for everyone to hide.

As far as compatibility, I know certain fish don't get along with others but there is always that small possibility that they will. The tiger barbs and gouramis were in the same tank to begin with and grew up together so they get along great. The barbs tend to stay on the top right hand side of the tank where the cichlids stay in the bottom left and the gouramis just kind of swim around everywhere and don't get bothered by any of the other fish. When they are feeding all of the other fish move out of the way of the gouramis which I thought was a little strange since the barbs like to swarm the food like piranhas.

I hope this provided a little more information and hopefully I get some more input from you guys/gals. I know you said return the cichilds, but I really like them and the kids love them so I think I'm going to leave them in for a while longer and see if anything changes. If it does I will definitely return them and like I said the owner of the LFS has been really good with me and said he will have no problems taking them back (dead or alive unless they get killed by the other fish or my tank gets too filthy and nothing can live in it).

As far as putting anything back in the 10 gallon tank, I don't see that happening because the other half saw the painted glass tetras and she just had to have them so they are in there now lol.

 

[Byron]

The lighting is a Hagen Marine-Glo T8 24" 20W 650 Lumes (the Kelvin rating is blank so not sure what it is, I've been trying to find something but haven't ran across anything yet will keep looking). I did read somewhere that this is a good bulb to use in combination with one of the other ones (Flora-Glo 2800K, Sun-Glo 4200K, Life-Glo 6700K, Aqua-Glo 18000K, and Power-Glo 18000K) depending on what you are trying to establish.

They can be combined if you have a dual-tube fixture. The photos are very blue so I assumed it is just the single tube, correct? If so, then the Life-Glo is the best [I use this on my single-tube tanks]. The Flora- and Aqua- are not worth it, they are not sufficient intensity. The Sun- is very yellow, and not as good for plants. The Power- could work, I don't happen to like the purple, and the Life-Glo is not only best for plants but renders colours correctly.

Now as far as the stocking,

I get all of my fish from the same LFS and whenever I go there I make sure to talk to the owner (who own another store across town). He seems to know quite a bit (which I would hope he does since he owns/works at a fish store) compared to some of the employees. I asked him about the WP when I was buying the fish (which he guarantees his fish other then death due to aggression). What he told me is that all of his freshwater tanks are filtered/cycled through the same system so all of the fish there have "just about" the same WP. He also told me that the fish he buys are bred in very similar WP and the reason being that this allows him to basically stay in business due to being able to sell his fish to just about anyone and guaranteeing them. Now obviously, yes naturally the fish would probably be happier in those WP, however they are used to these WP and I've had them for a week and they are all acting fine and look happy. I have quite a few more things in the tank for everyone to hide.

I am sorry but I am going to be quite blunt because I get very tired of hearing this nonsense. Fish stores are very different from home aquaria. The fish in the store will only be there a short time, with luck; you are intending to keep it for its life. Without the proper water parameters that life will be shorter, guaranteed. And along the way, health issues arise. Read more here on how this causes stress and what that means:
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-articles/stress-freshwater-aquarium-fish-98852/

As far as compatibility, I know certain fish don't get along with others but there is always that small possibility that they will. The tiger barbs and gouramis were in the same tank to begin with and grew up together so they get along great. The barbs tend to stay on the top right hand side of the tank where the cichlids stay in the bottom left and the gouramis just kind of swim around everywhere and don't get bothered by any of the other fish. When they are feeding all of the other fish move out of the way of the gouramis which I thought was a little strange since the barbs like to swarm the food like piranhas.

This is false too. I've no time to explain now, please read the profiles.

I hope this provided a little more information and hopefully I get some more input from you guys/gals. I know you said return the cichilds, but I really like them and the kids love them so I think I'm going to leave them in for a while longer and see if anything changes. If it does I will definitely return them and like I said the owner of the LFS has been really good with me and said he will have no problems taking them back (dead or alive unless they get killed by the other fish or my tank gets too filthy and nothing can live in it).

By the time anything changes the fish will be suffering. But that is up to you. I've offered the best I can.

Initially you asked for suggestions; you seem set on what you're doing, so why ask?

 

[miocevicd]

Yes it's just a single tube but now that I know this I will look into getting a dual-tube fixture or add another one.

That was a very informative article you wrote about fish stress.

After reading the profiles it seems like that for all the fish I have in that tank it would be ok if I brought up the hardness of the water. What I found for the barbs is 4-10KH, cichlid says 10-15KH and the gourami is 4-18KH. so if i was able to bring the KH to about 10 would that be acceptable? I know the compatibility might/will stress them. Out of the tiger barbs, cichlids, and gouramis; what is a good combo? cichlids and barbs maybe? I've been reading on several different sites and people have been successful at keeping tiger barbs and cichlids.

Initially you asked for suggestions; you seem set on what you're doing, so why ask?

Because I'm new to this and want to learn but at the same time I guess you could say experiment and kind of learn the different possibilities.

 

[miocevicd]

Here is a pic of what it currently looks like.

and the GH is close to 150ppm right now

 

[Byron]

In the penultimate post you presumably meant GH, not KH. GH is the hardness and this impacts fish; KH is carbonate hardness or Alkalinity and this has no impact on fish.

How are you raising the GH? What is the GH of your tap water?

On the fish, rift lake cichlids should never be mixed with any other fish. The cichlids experts here can comment on that.

And while a given range for this or that fish may be "X" the fish will always be healthier the closest to its natural range. For the fish other than the rift lake cichlids, this is soft. Leaving the water where the original numbers were is ideal for these fish. By raising it you are forcing them to "adapt" which is stressful.

 

[miocevicd]

Yes sorry i meant GH. And when i initially read my water readings i read it wrong the GH was closer to 150 and that is what it is from the tap. from the tap my ph is 6.8-7.2 closer to 6.8 but it has went up in the tank. now its right at 7.2 the KH from tap is 80 and the tank is between 120-180.

i have added crushed coral (aragonite) and the GH is a little above 150 now.

 

[Byron]

Yes sorry i meant GH. And when i initially read my water readings i read it wrong the GH was closer to 150 and that is what it is from the tap. from the tap my ph is 6.8-7.2 closer to 6.8 but it has went up in the tank. now its right at 7.2 the KH from tap is 80 and the tank is between 120-180.

i have added crushed coral (aragonite) and the GH is a little above 150 now.

Crushed coral/aragonit is good to raise GH and pH. I have gone this route for livebearers. That will be better for the rift lake cichlids. But not the others as I said; these fihs are not compatible in many ways.

Byron.

 

[miocevicd]

So I ended up taking your advice. I took back the bigger cichlids. Kept the 4 smaller ones and I put them in the 10g. I put the glass tetras in with the barbs and they are getting along fine and all the fish look a lot happier. The reason I did this is because 2 of the tiger barbs look like they are about to lay some eggs and the males are getting aggressive which in turn was making the cichlids more aggressive. Up until now I didn't have any issues. But even when the mating is over I will leave it like this. The barbs are definitely more "free" now.
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