Cherry Barbs In 10-gallon Tank

[thebluehanger]

Hello everyone,

I have a bit of experience with gold fish, but recently began getting into tropical fish. I have a 10-gallon tank in my office, so I am pretty limited to what I can keep. When I first began, I had three cherry barbs, three neon tetras, and a couple of endler's livebearears. One of my neons came down with neon tetra disease, and it was all downhill from there. I basically lost all of my fish except one cherry barb. I've since then worked on keeping the tank in good shape, maintaining good water levels, which I check regularly. I check PH, nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia levels and the levels are always in good shape. I've been doing some research on cherry barbs and have learned that they work better in a group. I was considering getting 3 more cherry barbs to keep the one company, but the one I already have seems relatively happy. I am afraid to add more fish and have more disasterous results. Is it better to get a few more cherry barbs to keep more of a community? Or is the one barb ok by himself? This barb has now been alone for approximately 5-6 months. If I do add more fish, what is the best way to avoid catastrophe? Any ideas? Thanks all!

 

[calderfisher]

It is always better to quarantine new fish before adding then to an existing community tank.
If this is not possible then I think adding a few more barbs will only help your lone survivor.
Good Luck.

CraigM

 

[mark.w.jones]

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[mark.w.jones]

Your tanks filter currently has only a tiny amount of bacteria present for breaking down ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Just enough that can live on the wee and poo from 1 cherry barb infact. So when you add any new fish there won't initially be enough bacteria present in order to cope with the extra waste load. So, the key to cycling with fish is to add only a small group at a time, maybe 3 more cherry barbs to start. Then to do daily water changes of about 10% as well as checking levels of ammonia and nitrite on a regular basis, I would say every day. If at any point you find you have readings of ammonia or nitrite above 0.25 then you need to be doing bigger water changes. You may find you get away with 20% changes every other day it just depends.

After about a week or two you can start backing off of the water changes but try and keep up the testing on a daily basis. Once you have had 0ppm readings for ammonia and nitrite on your tank for a week, then you can safely add your next school of say 5 fish and repeat.



ps you are quite limited stocking wise with a 10 gallon as you have found. Endlers, pygmy cories, harlequin rasboras, neon tetras, cherry / amano shrimp, sparkling gourami, otos are some options