I have 5 Tiger Barbs and one suckermouth catfish in a tank. I had the fish BEFORE I knew anything about keeping them responsibly (couple of friends gave my 4 yr old daughter 3 Tiger Barbs in a bowl and told us to "feed them each just maybe 3 flakes a day and change water once a week", which in turn was what the pet shop told them, etc etc you know how it goes 
), which immediately caused problems.
To make a long story short, one fish jumped out during the night and another was dying of a fungal infection and biting by the time I was able to set up a decent tank.
I have been researching and working hard tho to try and give the remaining fish a happy life. From what I've read, Tiger Barbs need to be in a group of at least 5, so I bought four more (planning to buy a few more along with a bigger tank soon). I have been checking pH, hardness, and ammonia, nitrates, nitrites etc and have been doing regular water changes (at least 50% a week) and I added numerous live plants.
About a week ago though, algae started growing, and covered everything overnight. At first I tried just removing them manually but it just grows too fast, so I asked my friend who is a serious naturalist and he told me to buy an algae eater from a petshop he frequents.
Which finally brings me
EDIT
--> yes, so sorry my pc suddenly went on the fritz
Thank you kindly for your replies! I have actually read a lot on the nitrification cycle, and I think that's basically what made the second fish so sick before I could get the tank. The tank itself, by the way, is a 40G one which had been cycled and been in continuous use for about 4 years. A friend who migrated to Canada gave it to me with everything in it (including water, plants, gravel, filter) except the Cichlid that was living in it, that went to another guy with a 120G tank. The filter was only off for the travel time from his house to mine with around 60% of its water and nothing was washed or removed during that time. No more sickness in the 2 months since, and the Tiger Barbs are now quite playful, following me around whenever I'm near, and eating quite voraciously (I sometimes have to pull myself away so I'm not tempted to give them more food heheh).
The new algae seemed to have started around the roots of the new live plants i added. I read somewhere that some types of green algae only grow in healthy tanks? Plus my setup is located on an open-air balcony but with a roof well over it, getting less than 1hr of direct sunlight everyday, is that bad?
Whatever the cause though, our new algae eater seems to be doing a great job of getting rid of it. There are just a couple of areas with algae at any given time now, just enuf that it always has something to eat, plus I am also looking for bogwood to add to the setup. I am not sure exactly what kind of fish it is though, could anyone help me identify it? P. multiradiata maybe?
Also the pet shop I was referred to seemed quite knowledgable about fish and they swore that this kind doesn't grow more than an inch more than it is now, but with all these horror stories on the net it makes me wonder. Can this kind really have dwarves too? I've been googling but its pretty hard when you have so many words to work on like "albino dwarf P. multiradiata" or "midget albino suckermouth fish", they come up with all kinds of results.
Anyway before anything else happens here are the pictures:
Image 1
Image 2
underbelly with its waste trailing and a tiger barb behind it a bit
Image 3
busy cleaning one of the plants nearly smothered by algae
Once again thank you very much for your help!
), which immediately caused problems.To make a long story short, one fish jumped out during the night and another was dying of a fungal infection and biting by the time I was able to set up a decent tank.
I have been researching and working hard tho to try and give the remaining fish a happy life. From what I've read, Tiger Barbs need to be in a group of at least 5, so I bought four more (planning to buy a few more along with a bigger tank soon). I have been checking pH, hardness, and ammonia, nitrates, nitrites etc and have been doing regular water changes (at least 50% a week) and I added numerous live plants. About a week ago though, algae started growing, and covered everything overnight. At first I tried just removing them manually but it just grows too fast, so I asked my friend who is a serious naturalist and he told me to buy an algae eater from a petshop he frequents.
Which finally brings me
EDIT
--> yes, so sorry my pc suddenly went on the fritz
Thank you kindly for your replies! I have actually read a lot on the nitrification cycle, and I think that's basically what made the second fish so sick before I could get the tank. The tank itself, by the way, is a 40G one which had been cycled and been in continuous use for about 4 years. A friend who migrated to Canada gave it to me with everything in it (including water, plants, gravel, filter) except the Cichlid that was living in it, that went to another guy with a 120G tank. The filter was only off for the travel time from his house to mine with around 60% of its water and nothing was washed or removed during that time. No more sickness in the 2 months since, and the Tiger Barbs are now quite playful, following me around whenever I'm near, and eating quite voraciously (I sometimes have to pull myself away so I'm not tempted to give them more food heheh).
The new algae seemed to have started around the roots of the new live plants i added. I read somewhere that some types of green algae only grow in healthy tanks? Plus my setup is located on an open-air balcony but with a roof well over it, getting less than 1hr of direct sunlight everyday, is that bad?
Whatever the cause though, our new algae eater seems to be doing a great job of getting rid of it. There are just a couple of areas with algae at any given time now, just enuf that it always has something to eat, plus I am also looking for bogwood to add to the setup. I am not sure exactly what kind of fish it is though, could anyone help me identify it? P. multiradiata maybe?
Also the pet shop I was referred to seemed quite knowledgable about fish and they swore that this kind doesn't grow more than an inch more than it is now, but with all these horror stories on the net it makes me wonder. Can this kind really have dwarves too? I've been googling but its pretty hard when you have so many words to work on like "albino dwarf P. multiradiata" or "midget albino suckermouth fish", they come up with all kinds of results.
Anyway before anything else happens here are the pictures:
Image 1
Image 2
underbelly with its waste trailing and a tiger barb behind it a bit
Image 3
busy cleaning one of the plants nearly smothered by algae
Once again thank you very much for your help!
/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/
