# Problems feeding the fish.



## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

So it's the 4th or 5th day I've had my tank stocked similar to what it is and having some problems with feeding. My shrimp will eat everything, no worries there, but the frogs ignore the frog pellets and sinking fish pellets I put in and also won't eat flakes dangled in front of them. They haven't eaten at all as far as I know since getting them. My Cherry Barbs ignore the 2 different kind of flakes I have, will nip at the frog pellets/sinking fish pellets but then leave them alone, and only eat blood worms that fall near them. The blood worms are the most buoyant of all the foods I have tried and thus it's hard to get them down to where the Barbs/frogs can eat them (haven't tried blood worms with the frogs yet, will soon) as the Barbs rarely venture near the surface.

What can I do to regularly feed these guys? I'm worried about the frogs and also don't know if a diet of only freeze-dried worms is healthy for the Barbs.The 2nd night I threw in a bunch of blood worms and the Barbs came running and gobbled them up, but since then they don't touch them at the surface (occasionally one random Barb will swim up and grab one, but the group doesn't seem to notice). I only try feeding once a night at about the same time and I usually give up after about 30 mins and net out all the uneaten food.

So basically..

1) Are there better ways to feed/should I be trying different foods?
2) Is a diet of only blood worms detrimental to the health of a Cherry Barb?


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Rohkey said:


> 1) Are there better ways to feed/should I be trying different foods?
> 2) Is a diet of only blood worms detrimental to the health of a Cherry Barb?


1. Well it depends - how frequently are you feeding? I feed my dwarf frogs only once or twice a week with algae wafers and shrimp pellets. I've seen them picking at each once in a blue moon, but I've also seen them eating fallen dead leaves and other garbage on the tank floor. As far as the TB's - you might be feeding too much, or they might be stressed. How many TB's do you have, and how often do you feed them?

2. Generally, I would think so but I'm not sure.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> 1. Well it depends - how frequently are you feeding? I feed my dwarf frogs only once or twice a week with algae wafers and shrimp pellets. I've seen them picking at each once in a blue moon, but I've also seen them eating fallen dead leaves and other garbage on the tank floor. As far as the TB's - you might be feeding too much, or they might be stressed. How many TB's do you have, and how often do you feed them?
> 
> 2. Generally, I would think so but I'm not sure.


Assuming TB's are Cherry Barbs, I feed once a night. I first try a few flakes and when they don't seem interested I scoop them out. Try the other kind of flakes, same thing, then the blood worms come. I have 2 male and 5 females (30G tank). In a few days I'm buying more fish and debating either going entirely Cherry Barbs (and thus going for maybe 3-4 males and 10 or so females) or getting 6-8 of another community fish plus another female Barb.


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## mk4gti (Jun 15, 2010)

i had frogs a few times. They would always just eat flake food. Im sure they will just munch up those ghost shrimp if they get really hungry.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I never saw frogs eat when I had them. After my last one died I just lost interest in keeping them. I have 16 Cherry Barbs I think, and the last thing they have is problems eating. They don't come to the surface much, but the Angels, Bloodfins, Cardinals/Noens tend to cover that area. If you're concerned about them getting enough food, throw them in an algae wafer. Mine seem to prefer these over just about anything. I feed mine flake. I crush up the flake very well and when I drop it in the water, I pop my hand in the water a lot on the food I just dropped. It gets the food down in the water column instantly instead of waiting for the eventual. It is a habit I started trying to make sure fry/adolescent fish got enough food. Mine go Apepoop over it.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Sorry, CB's not TB's (Tiger Barbs).

Try not feeding for a day or two then feeding. Your fish might just not be hungry. If you have a testing kit, you could also check your water parameters to make sure nothing's stressing them out. I wouldn't get more fish until you determine what's ailing your current batch.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I also would not get the danios for that tank. Cardinal/Neon Tetras would compliment the color of Cherry Barbs. I prefer Cardinals over Neons, but I have them both.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> Sorry, CB's not TB's (Tiger Barbs).
> 
> Try not feeding for a day or two then feeding. Your fish might just not be hungry. If you have a testing kit, you could also check your water parameters to make sure nothing's stressing them out. I wouldn't get more fish until you determine what's ailing your current batch.


Water parameters seem fine. Ammonia showing up in very trade amounts (between 0 and .25 ppm), Nitrites at 0, Nitrates at 20 ppm. Doing a 15-20% water change every other day to get the Nitrates down as they were about 40-50ppm originally. pH is 7.5.



jrman83 said:


> I also would not get the danios for that tank. Cardinal/Neon Tetras would compliment the color of Cherry Barbs. I prefer Cardinals over Neons, but I have them both.


I figured Danios might be good because they would be at the top and when I fed the Barbs would see the Danios eating and figure out what was going on, to make feeding easier..but I have considered Neons/Cardinals and may end up doing that.


The fish are acting a bit odd today too. My biggest female (she's like 1.5x the size of any of the other Barbs) keeps going missing for hours at a time. Last night I looked everywhere in the tank and couldn't find her, only to find her this morning. She then disappeared again while the other 4 females schooled together and just recently popped back in sight. The two males keep picking on her belly/head and she isn't putting up much of a fight, she looks lethargic and isn't staying completely upright. I think maybe the males chased her to exhaustion and she's either sick or completely worn out since the first couple days the males seemed to like her more than any of the other females and chased her around all day long. She isn't schooling with the other females but swims fine on her own when left alone.

The frogs are more active than they ever have been, one of them is floating at the surface (but still refused food) along with the current, he then sinks down to mid level for a while while motionless before venturing back to the surface for a while. The other keeps trying to climb the tank as if he wants air but stops about an inch from the surface and goes back down, only to repeat a minute later. I did see one of them eating a pellet in the gravel earlier, so that's a good sign.

Also for the first time I've seen the male Barbs get feisty with the Shrimp. Before they completely ignored each other, to my knowledge, and now one of the males was pecking at the face of one of the biggest shrimp (who's bigger than the fish). The Shrimp seems fine and the Barb swam away, but this has happened 3-4 times that I've noticed.

Calamity!


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Try pushing the flake down to them like I mentioned and see what they do. Mine swarm, but there is a lot of competition in my tank.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

jrman83 said:


> Try pushing the flake down to them like I mentioned and see what they do. Mine swarm, but there is a lot of competition in my tank.


I'll try that tonight, but I've tried putting the flakes in where the filter outlets and even though the flakes go down to where the Barbs are, usually they'll just nip at it then ignore it...or ignore it altogether. I'll try smaller flakes though next time, I've been doing big ones to make them easier to net out if they got rejected.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

I hope your reclusive female barb makes it. You might want to consider quarantining her or the males if things start looking much worse.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> I hope your reclusive female barb makes it. You might want to consider quarantining her or the males if things start looking much worse.



Same here, the first couple days she was the most lively of the females and all the other ones would form around here when the males came looking to play.

I took a video of her, it's rather long at almost 4 minutes but I'll point out some of the things I've been noticing and concerned about. The white things at the top are bubbles, not debris as they look like in the video.

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/35NQdHJ7cmI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Notice at 0:22-0:40 how she skims the top for something (she does this a couple times an hour). Could she be looking for food? I fed them minimal amounts of worms last night (trying to get them to eat flakes instead, don't want them always eating worms) but she was hiding/missing at this point.

At 1:30 the male comes picking at her and she doesn't do anything. The male was tame this time, he's done a lot worse on other occasions.

At 3:00 (and other instances) notice how she looks like a capsizing ship at 45 degree angle or so.

Also overall notice her lethargy and how the other 4 females like to loosely form around the ornament/bubbles on one side of the tank (they've done that since day 1) while the female is in the completely opposite side. 


Since uploading the video I saw her go into the plants where a male harassed her and she did a complete 360 (turning over) before floating up to the surface at a nearly completely vertical angle. Since then she's been looking more like at the beginning of the video.

Just tested the water, no trace of ammonia/nitrites. Nitrates at 20 ppm.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Here's another one. Skip to 2:55 for the Barb and what she has been doing lately (she's spending a lot of time doing this/being vertical).

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BhwBXKDghBM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I think that fish is soon to die, sadly. Is there discoloration between her eyes and dorsal fin on her body?


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

jrman83 said:


> I think that fish is soon to die, sadly. Is there discoloration between her eyes and dorsal fin on her body?


Yes there was, and her belly was a little discolored as well.

I say 'was' because I had to kill her about an hour ago. She went from what you see in the video to much worse in very little time, a male was picking at her as she laid on the bottom so I took her out and let her expire in peace.

What concerns me is how rapid the death occurred The male (I think, maybe it was a different male but unlikely) wasn't eating, was separated from the group, and never was really part of the rest of the Barb community in my tank...but this female that died was seemingly healthy and was one of the biggest eaters the first few days, it was only yesterday she started showing any signs of being ill.

So for the moment the two males and 4 females seem very healthy, the females school together, one male likes to hang around the plants and occasionally chase after a female, and the other male patrols the tank and divides his time chasing females and chasing around the male.

Any suggestions of what I could be doing wrong or were these probably just bad fish? The temperature has been a stable 76 and no changes in the pH or anything else that I've noticed.

EDIT: One of the males is tilting before up-righting himself and swimming off, sometimes when he swims he's at an angle similar to the female in the video FML *n1 I'll have to keep an eye on him to see if it progresses into something more worrisome.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

The discoloration looked consistent with columnaris, but it was hard to tell in the vid. I wouldn't worry too much about your other fish at this point. Stop watching them or you'll think there is something wrong with all of them - been there. If the fish hasn't been in there long, don't sweat it. They are actually pretty tough fish. I had two die recently, two days after I bought them.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

ADF's are carnivorous. They don't eat vegetable matter. They will peck at whatever is near them because they can only see shadows and think that anything that moves is food. If they smell food, they will peck at it, but once they find out it's vegetable based, they usually ignore it.

Try hand feeding them. I use 10 inch stainless steel tweezers. I thaw out 1/2 a cube of blood worms every other night and split that between the two of them. I get a pinch in the tweezers and dangle it in front of the frogs. They go nuts! (I use Glass worms a couple times a week to change it up). They try to eat the frog bites, but they fall into the gravel and the frogs can't reach them. You can use a small terracotta pot dish and put the frogs food on that. They should smell it and go to it. But their main diet should be meat, so try the hand feeding with blood worms and glass worms. (Seriously, the go from sweet, docile, lazy frogs to crazy, writhing, feeding machines, lol!)

Here's the video that I got the tweezer feeding idea from. (Mine wouldn't eat either, but once I tried this they became huge fans of feeding time.) All I have to do now is "click" the tweezers in the tank water and they come darting out of hiding for their supper. YouTube - ‪How to feed an African Dwarf/Clawed Frog‬‏


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Thanks Holly. I tried feeding them frozen blood worms tonight and they still didn't want them. The fish went nuts for them but the frogs swam away. I even netted them and had the net sit where the frogs were in a small amount of water at the top of the tank and threw in some of the thawed worms, they ignored them. Then I took the frogs out and put them into a bowl and threw more worms in. The worms sat on top of the frogs' head and the frog ceased to take notice.

The frogs don't look skinny, so perhaps they're eating some of the stuff at the bottom (like I said I saw one picking at one of the pellets earlier and eating the bits as the pellet dissolved). On the other hand, my tank doesn't look like it still has all the 12 shrimp I put in there... :biggerfish:

I'm just going to ignore the frogs for a while feeding wise. In a week if they look skinny or I notice them not eating still I'll try the tweezer method. They've been more active today than ever so they must be getting this energy from somewhere right?


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

True. They like the pellets when they are soft. If in a week or so they still dont want blood worms you could try glass worms. Good luck!


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

1 frog and another female Barb died today. The Barb was acting the same as the other female that died. The frog didn't show any real signs, maybe yesterday the floating at the top and being more active was actually a negative thing. Now the other frog has white stuff all over his head, not sure if he's shedding or if it's fungus. It seems like the biggest indicator of a female that's going to die is they aren't schooling with the other females who are usually together in one side of the tank, and now another female is starting to do that. It's odd that the Barbs are dropping sequentially and not coincidentally, it's as if the tank requires one fish to be ill/dying at all times and as soon as one dies another takes their place.

Edit: Just checked the tank (hadn't since I had been home). Other frog is dead, it was a fungus. *frown

What a depressing tank.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Maybe you have something in the tank. Perform sequential water changes, 25-30% each time for the next few days and see if that one fish improves. Maybe the rest will survive. I would consider something like that....


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

I'll try it. I've been doing 25% every other day as is because my nitrates were originally a little elevated, I'll bump it up to every day. For what it's worth the rest of the fish are actively engaging each other and seem healthy, but that's always been the case thus far.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

1 more dead today, looked like part of her mouth was missing. Rest of fish are hiding and don't look healthy at all, some have clamped fins and one of the males has white stuff on his spine. Doing a 50% water change asap.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Rohkey said:


> 1 frog and another female Barb died today. The Barb was acting the same as the other female that died. The frog didn't show any real signs, maybe yesterday the floating at the top and being more active was actually a negative thing. Now the other frog has white stuff all over his head, not sure if he's shedding or if it's fungus. It seems like the biggest indicator of a female that's going to die is they aren't schooling with the other females who are usually together in one side of the tank, and now another female is starting to do that. It's odd that the Barbs are dropping sequentially and not coincidentally, it's as if the tank requires one fish to be ill/dying at all times and as soon as one dies another takes their place.
> 
> Edit: Just checked the tank (hadn't since I had been home). Other frog is dead, it was a fungus. *frown
> 
> What a depressing tank.


Awww! Don't give up! Maybe it wasn't anything you did - maybe it was a sick fish or frog that brought disease into the tank. ADF's are really simple to take care of, so if they aren't interested in food, I'd think they must be ill. Disease, Illness and Injury Pictures

Here's a good page on them: ADF Care Sheet

If the other frogs look healthy, maybe move them to a quarantine tank so they don't get sick, (same with any healthy fish). If worse comes to worse, and they all die, I'd try again, (after a good cleaning, or medicating the water.... does medicating just the water kill bad stuff?)

Good luck!


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

holly12 said:


> Awww! Don't give up! Maybe it wasn't anything you did - maybe it was a sick fish or frog that brought disease into the tank. ADF's are really simple to take care of, so if they aren't interested in food, I'd think they must be ill. Disease, Illness and Injury Pictures
> 
> Here's a good page on them: ADF Care Sheet
> 
> ...


Thanks, and I'm definitely not giving up, one way or another I'll get this tank healthy and stocked. I just feel bad for the little fellas because they never had a chance and I hate not knowing if it's my fault and if I could have done anything to prevent their untimely deaths. I only had 2 frogs to begin with and both are dead so no more for now (I actually bought the last 2 Petsmart had, I think they are discontinuing them as an employee said they were having problems keeping them alive and were losing money on them).

Doing a few things different though. I bought a 5.5 gallon and 10 gallon tank, one of them will be a quarantine tank and the other will be a place I can put the fish during water changes and such. This will allow me to be able to do more water changes if needed without disrupting the fish or having to rush. Have them both set up with sponge filters but need to get heaters for them tomorrow. Also added a teaspoon of salt per 10 gallons in all of my aquariums and will keep it at that salinity the best I can.

One of my male barbs looks to be dying, debating killing him or waiting until tomorrow to put him in the quarantine tank, but don't want to introduce any parasites/etc into that tank. He's sitting at the bottom near the air bubbles and his dorsal fin is either almost completely gone or completely clamped with white stuff all over his back and the rest of the fins aren't looking too perky either.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

A tank for water change? Not needed. You'll stress them more chasing them trying to catch them than you will with the water change. Plus, changing fish between tanks I always look at as an iffy thing to do. Although the water may be the same to you and I, it could be vastly different than the water the fish is coming from. QT/hospital tank I see doing for sure.

Sounds to me like you got a serious fungus in the tank. There are numerous meds that are sold at Petsmart/Petco that will work for treatment. I'd treat that whole tank with whatever med you go with.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Check for the amount of salt the frogs can handle. I think they can do a little, but not too much. (And it sounds like the ones at Petsmart were sick if they were having trouble keeping them alive. They are pretty simple creatures to care for. I don't think it's your fault). So, if the frogs were already not well, you just have to figure out what's up with the fish....


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

jrman83 said:


> A tank for water change? Not needed. You'll stress them more chasing them trying to catch them than you will with the water change. Plus, changing fish between tanks I always look at as an iffy thing to do. Although the water may be the same to you and I, it could be vastly different than the water the fish is coming from. QT/hospital tank I see doing for sure.
> 
> Sounds to me like you got a serious fungus in the tank. There are numerous meds that are sold at Petsmart/Petco that will work for treatment. I'd treat that whole tank with whatever med you go with.


I probably won't put them in there for major water changes, but I figured when I put in the eco complete gravel it'd be better off moving them to let the gravel settle. I have no idea really what med to get because I don't know what exactly is wrong with the tank, never had to diagnose this stuff before. It's ironic because I was a better fishkeeper at 10 with an overstocked uncycled 10 gallon tank than I am now after doing research, letting the tank cycle, and understocking the tank.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Rohkey said:


> It's ironic because I was a better fishkeeper at 10 with an overstocked uncycled 10 gallon tank than I am now after doing research, letting the tank cycle, and understocking the tank.


Same! In high school I lost interest in my tank, went months without cleaning it, rarely fed the fish...... they thrived!!!! Now that I'm taking really good care of them, they keep dying! It's weird..... (and before anyone jumps on me for my highschool years of not taking care of my fish, I know, it was irresponsible - and I feel bad now.... except that they all did really really well, lol!!)


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

hmmm... sounds like a few tanks i have had in the past... its possible that your tank simply doesnt have a balanced bacteria load. if you add about 1/8 of a teaspoon of sugar to your tank, it will cause a bacterial spike that will help create a more stable balance. i wouldnt do this with anything in your tank, as the proccess can temporarily wreak havoc if the dosage isnt right, but once the cloudiness clears up the tank would be in a much more stable state. i have done this several times to help speed up the cycle in new tanks. i even regularly add sugar to my 65g community tank with no ill affects to the fish, but i dose very carefully. you may just have diseased fish that came from diseased tanks, but if all else fails, its worth a shot right?


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Auban said:


> if you add about 1/8 of a teaspoon of sugar to your tank, it will cause a bacterial spike that will help create a more stable balance. i wouldnt do this with anything in your tank, as the proccess can temporarily wreak havoc if the dosage isnt right, but once the cloudiness clears up the tank would be in a much more stable state. i have done this several times to help speed up the cycle in new tanks. i even regularly add sugar to my 65g community tank with no ill affects to the fish, but i dose very carefully.


Wow, that's crazy! I never would have thought of that! (I guess you really do learn something new every day!)


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

it works the same way it does on saltwater tanks. more well known is the vodka method for reef tanks, used to reduce nitrates. some people use sugar instead of vodka as the source of organic carbon. i have found it works just as well for freshwater, and its great for fighting algae. i have even noticed my black beard algae turning pink after dosing once a day for a week straight.


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Thanks for the sugar advice, I'm going to hold off for now as the remaining fish seem to be doing well and have finally begun taking interest in the flakes. Tomorrow I'm going to try putting in the eco complete gravel and will have to do a bit of shuffling but I think it'll work out. In a week or so if the fish are still doing okay I'm considering taking a venture out to the closest fish store to get a couple more Barbs and some Cardinals.

With the new gravel, is it still necessary to use root tabs?

Also last time I was at this fish store the owner suggested I keep my temp at 82 degrees to promote health and increase activity, what does everyone think of this? I had been keeping it at 76 Fahrenheit.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

In this forum (Planted tank), people in this thread said that you don't have to use root tabs with them. How long does eco-complete or fluorite last? I've never used either though, so I couldn't tell you. I just have plain gravel and use a liquid fertilizer - it's been working great! 


As for the temp, I was keeping my fish at like 74-76 degrees and found they kept getting sick. The LFS guy recommended bumping it up to 79-80 and keep it there permanently. I've since done this, (it varies from day to day between 79-81) and so far things have been great. So far online, I've found that people recommend from 72-82 for Cherry Barbs - who do you listen to, I know, lol - so I wouldn't think that temp' would hurt.... you could try lowering it to 80 and see how they do. I've got ADF's in with my fish and they seem to be doing fine in the range I've got. (The shrimp are doing fine too).


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

holly12 said:


> In this forum (Planted tank), people in this thread said that you don't have to use root tabs with them. How long does eco-complete or fluorite last? I've never used either though, so I couldn't tell you. I just have plain gravel and use a liquid fertilizer - it's been working great!
> 
> 
> As for the temp, I was keeping my fish at like 74-76 degrees and found they kept getting sick. The LFS guy recommended bumping it up to 79-80 and keep it there permanently. I've since done this, (it varies from day to day between 79-81) and so far things have been great. So far online, I've found that people recommend from 72-82 for Cherry Barbs - who do you listen to, I know, lol - so I wouldn't think that temp' would hurt.... you could try lowering it to 80 and see how they do. I've got ADF's in with my fish and they seem to be doing fine in the range I've got. (The shrimp are doing fine too).


I bumped it up to 80 and my heater malfunctioned. It got hot today, 84ish, and I didn't have the air on when gone...the tank got to nearly 85-86 degrees before I came home and realized what was going on. One fish is now swimming sideways, poor girl, but the tank is now stable at 80 and the rest of the fish seem fine (the heater I think is broken though, it's set at 72 yet comes on at 82)


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I unplug my heaters in the Summer time. They are only needed if you add a lot of cold water during a water change, but even then change may only be a degree or two when fully mixed.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

That happened with my old heater. I had it set for one temp, and it would heat it to another, I would turn the heat up and the "on" light would go off, I would turn it down and the light would go off.... I ended up getting a new one and it's been working fine.

Is the one fish swimming normally again or is she still sideways?


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

holly12 said:


> That happened with my old heater. I had it set for one temp, and it would heat it to another, I would turn the heat up and the "on" light would go off, I would turn it down and the light would go off.... I ended up getting a new one and it's been working fine.
> 
> Is the one fish swimming normally again or is she still sideways?


She died shortly after 

The heater might have been my fault, since the temperature part is hard to read without direct lighting, I think I may have accidentally set it too high instead of at 80. The 5.5 gallon quarantine tank has a small heater that is supposed to be automatically set to 78 degrees but can't seem to keep the tank at more than 76. Damn these heaters...

The only good thing out of all this is I'm fairly certain there is nothing wrong with the tank now. The other fish are energetic, chasing each other around, playing swimming games with each other (at least that is my interpretation, as they like to swim across the tank at an angle with each other and then take turns swimming back and doing it all over again before separating and then chasing each other around again) and are taking interest in the flakes and brine shrimp I have been trying to feed them. I think there are only about 4 Ghost Shrimp left though, started with 12...no idea what happened to them. The Anubias plants seem to be thriving as well, while the Amazon Swords don't look so good..I've tried 3 different lights and finally settled on a 20 watt one from Pets Supplies Plus. Couldn't find a higher wattage 24'' T8.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Well..... not saying this IS what happened to the shrimp but..... yesterday I found out that apparently ADF's will _sometimes_ eat shrimp. (Totally un-cool since I was told they could live with shrimp and have 2 in with my RCS!!) I was at a pet store and talking to a lady who breeds RCS with her husband, and she and another person who works there said that they've both seen ADF's eat shrimp.

So far I don't _think_ any of my shrimp have been eaten.... but could that have been why your frogs never seemed hungry? I think Ghost shrimp are bigger than RCS though..... so maybe that's not what happened. 

Glad to hear things are good in your tank again! Are you going to get more ADF's and ghost shrimp? 

As for the heater, yeah, I had one that was supposed to automatically set for a certain temp' and it never did, so I got one that I could manually set. It's been fantastic.

Just a thought on the ADF's.... how tall is your tank? If it's taller than 18 inches, they can't get to the top to breathe..... could that have been what was wrong with the frogs? (Just throwing ideas out there).


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

holly12 said:


> Well..... not saying this IS what happened to the shrimp but..... yesterday I found out that apparently ADF's will _sometimes_ eat shrimp. (Totally un-cool since I was told they could live with shrimp and have 2 in with my RCS!!) I was at a pet store and talking to a lady who breeds RCS with her husband, and she and another person who works there said that they've both seen ADF's eat shrimp.
> 
> So far I don't _think_ any of my shrimp have been eaten.... but could that have been why your frogs never seemed hungry? I think Ghost shrimp are bigger than RCS though..... so maybe that's not what happened.
> 
> ...


Turns out I was wrong. I hadn't been target feeding the shrimp lately (mainly because I didn't think many were left plus they seemed to like eating the food designated for the frogs). The few shrimp in there didn't have anything in their stomachs so I threw in a couple of the small frog pellets I had and about 10 of them came out of the woodwork (it was funny watching 3-4 of them crawl out from this ornament in there, but puzzling because I had flashed a light in there looking for them and didn't see any). Dumped a few more pellets in and it turned into a battle royale. The little shrimp scurried to grab a pellet and ran off with it, while the big ones tried guarding 2-3 of them as they feasted. Happy to see that the vast majority, perhaps even all of them, are still alive.

I didn't think the frogs were responsible because the first few days I had the shrimp I could sometimes count all 12 in plain sight of the tank and the frogs showed little interest, so you'd think they would have gone after them after a day or two at least. As for sizing..two of them are gargantuan, bigger than my cherry barbs by a long shot..there are a couple really small ones probably only a cm in length, and the rest fall somewhere in between. The two big ones can be territorial towards the other shrimp and like to stake a claim in certain parts of the tank but are also the ones the barbs like to pick fights with, although I've never seen any serious signs of aggression from either parties.

The tank is 16 inches high, so after gravel about 14..plus I had the water fairly low early on so the actual height was more likely around a foot. I watched them come up for air on many occasions and the one frog was really good at it and swam like a champ. The other one was slower but he always made it from what I saw, and in the last day before he (or she, not sure how to sex them) died he was at the top a lot, so I don't think that was the issue. I really just think they came with a fungus that left them with little appetite and also little change of survival unless diagnosed (which I unfortunately wasn't in any position to do).

I don't think I'm going to get more ADFs but I don't know for sure, I'm pretty fickle and am relatively undecided on what to do with my tank at this point. I want to get more barbs but am going to avoid Petsmart from now on for anything but more Ghost Shrimp (but not going to buy more of them for a while either most likely). The only place I know of that has ADF's are Pets Supplies Plus, and I'm a little leery of buying them from another chain petstore. The only LFS I know of within a 30-45 min drive with freshwater fish only has these things called "candy frogs" (they were pink and blue I believe) and I have no idea what they are as I haven't been able to find anything about them online. The owner said they grow up to eat fish so I was thinking maybe they were painted/modified clawed frogs but they didn't look like them. They also sell painted glass fish, so I'm not too keen on buying from them as their ethics are questionable.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Do you have a Big Als? They sell ADF's. May be able to order them on line... but that's always a gamble.

As for the shrimp feeding, yeah, it's hilarious when you drop food in! They all scramble to find a piece and roll it over and over in their little legs, pulling pieces off and shoveling it into their mouths! Mine love the left over blood worms and frog pellets. They also love the zucchini and algae wafers. They're pigs. They are super good at hiding too. I can never see all of mine at once.

On that note - if you ever find that a lot of your smaller ones are missing, check the filter. I was cleaning my filter yesterday and found 10 live RCS in there, swimming around and eating! (I told my husband that I thought I was missing some shrimp and he didn't believe me, lol!) I had to put a pre-filter sponge over the filter intake. I didn't used to have one and they were fine. Then I had baby shrimp and put a FLUval sponge on, and they all got used to the slower water flow and hung out on the sponge eating all the stuff that got caught in it. Once the babies grew, I took the sponge off because it was slowing down the flow too much and my Bamboo shrimp wasn't getting the current she needed.... I guess my shrimps got lazy and lost their muscle because they can't resist the intake pull anymore and get sucked up. I've had to get a more porous sponge so the current stays strong, but the shrimp don't end up in the filter. Still can't figure out how the impeller didn't chew them up!!

Candy frogs? Sound awesome, but I'd be a little wary too, especially since you can't find any info' on them. (I looked too... there's literally nothing!)


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Mine are pretty fond of the frog pellets and frozen blood worms as well, they also pick at the leaves of the plants sometimes...but don't do too much damage (collaboratively they ate 1-2 leaves, I have 8-9 Anubias...so not too worried).

I don't have to worry about the filter as even the smallest ones don't seem big enough to fit, the filter has long thin slits in it and the shrimp would really have to work hard to get sucked up I think. I've been planning on getting algae wafers as well as I've heard barbs will pick at them and also have noticed my barbs picking at stuff in the tank anyways so I'm sure between the shrimp and barbs they wouldn't be ignored.

Shrimp definitely are cute though and I'm glad I got them...couldn't imagine a tank without them to be honest, so efficient.

I don't see any Big Al's in the area but I did a thorough search on Google Maps and found a highly rated store in Livonia, MI named Fantastic Fins. I'll check the place out Wednesday as I have to make a trip out to my campus anyways.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Great! You'll have to let me know how the place there is - I'm assuming you meant you found one not in your hometown but near your school. (The one's here vary, as I think they are independently owned I think).

I agree. Couldn't imagine a tank with out shrimp! They add so much life. It's hilarious when you are looking at the fish, and a little shrimp swims by with it's little swimmerettes right in front of the glass!


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Yeah my school is about a 40 minute drive north and in an area with more independently owned/specialized stores than the area I live which is mostly chains for whatever reason. Usually when I want to shop for something specific (be it fish, soccer, or when I played Magic the Gathering) it seems my best bet is always in the cities west and northwest of Detroit whereas I live right at the junction of Lake Eerie and the Detroit River south of Detroit and in view of Canada. Apparently downriver Detroit isn't a great place for hobbyists.

And I think my post may have been a bit ambiguous, I found a highly rated place close to my school but it wasn't a Big Al's (don't know if you thought that was what I meant), it's called Fantastic Fins. Don't know if you still care as much about how it goes since it's an isolated shop with no ties to the places you frequent. I'll still let you know though


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Sure - always good to hear about new places to shop! (Not sure if we have those stores here. I'll have to check).

Cool - you can see Canada! I'm about 30-45 minutes North of Lake Ontario, (North of Toronto).


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Oh nice, I have a cousin who lives in Newmarket, which I believe is about an hour north of Toronto.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

I live 10 minutes outside of Newmarket. Cool beans!


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

I went to that fish store today. It was epic, such an improvement over the other tropical fish store I went to. Definitely going there for all of fish purchases. Prices were similar to the other store but they had about every species of fish you could imagine. The place was fairly small but twice as large as the other store and with 3x-4x the fish, all very nicely setup and no signs of overstocking. About 20 species of inch-long baby Plecos, some didn't even have names (funny seeing L181, etc etc, as their name). Had these really nice Albino Longfin Bristlenose Plecos for only $12.99. I think I'll end up getting one at some point.

The owner was infinitely nicer than the owner of the other store as well and actually sat there and listened to me for a while unlike the other guy who interrupted me after 15 seconds and went on tangents that had nothing to do with what I wanted to know. I ended up buying 3 healthy-looking Cherry Barbs and they're interacting well with my existing 4 and everything looks as good as it ever has in the tank. If there aren't any problems in 1-2 weeks I'll go back for a couple more Barbs or a handful Cardinal Tetras, and eventually, as I said, I want to get one of the Plecos and possibly Amino Shrimp depending on how my Ghost Shrimp are doing.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Definitely sounds like a good place! (Always good when the store guys listen!)

The long fin plecos are really pretty! You'll def' have to take pics if you get one!

Here's hoping the new Barbs (and the old ones stay healthy!) Keep us updated!!


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

I went back today and purchased 6 Cardinal Tetras, a Honey Gourami, and an albino Bristlenose Plec (decided against the long-fin variety that was double the price) all for $25, was pretty happy about both the fish and the price. I had no plans to buy a Gourami but my girlfriend really liked them and one of the owners recommended them to me. (The place is co-owned by two guys, there was a different one there there this time so I told him my story and he suggested a few fish for me, including a Honey Gourami). They didn't have any female Cherries so I'll go back in another week or two to buy the last 2 females I want along with another Cardinal or two and be done with it in terms of stocking.

Anything I need to know about the Gourami? I put all the fish in about 30 minutes ago and the tank got pretty excited but no signs of aggression or anything. I expect a long feeling-out process and I'll also be sure to watch the ammonia levels closely and do water changes as needed.

Also my pH is stable at 7.5 but I read Cardinals like very soft water. Will this be an issue?


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

My pH is high and I've got 'em. I've also read about some other people who have PH's around 7 and they've kept schools for years.

The preferred is 4-6 but it can be done higher. I would test the water they came in and compare it to yours.... just acclimate them slower if there's a huge difference.

Congrats' on the fish (and the amazing price!) Goruami's are so cool! I've never had any but they are so pretty! (I was told to get some to eat the Hygra in my tank.... but they will eat my shrimp). If your ghost shrimp are large, they should be ok. If they are small, the Gourami may eat them. They are labyrinth fish, so can breathe air like Bettas. Here's a site: Honey Gourami, Trichogaster chuna, Syn: Colisa Chuna, Family: Osphronemidae, Subfamily: Luciocephalinae You'll have to post pics!

(Hee hee, I like how you updated your signature already. I get excited about new critters and update right away too!)


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Pictures may be worth a thousand words but videos leave little to be desired..so here you go!

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<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/o7Qp-MrX1cA?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/o7Qp-MrX1cA?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object>

And a picture for good measure.










The Gourami looks kinda lonely, should I do something about that? The owner told me he'd be fine since he's with friendly fish and that Gouramis in general do fine alone, but online I've read a lot about them being much better off in groups.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Just a warning - I saw earlier one of your fish died after it was missing some of its face - I had an outbreak of the same thing and it claimed 9 of 10 bloodfins - it's called cottonmouth, I would Google it and look into a preventative treatment, because you really can't see the symptoms until its too late. How long ago did that fish die? Look for white fuzzy patches around the mouth any eyes on all of your other fish.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

Very nice! (LOVE the tiki hut with the water wheel!) Does an air pump/stone run that or is it just turning in the current? (The fish must love hiding it it). Awww, you're ABNP makes me miss mine! If we didn't live so far apart I would have given you mine. (Do you know yet if yours is a male or female? I had a girl). The shrimp is cute! He looked surprised when the pleco came out from under the hut!

I really like your plants too!


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## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> Just a warning - I saw earlier one of your fish died after it was missing some of its face - I had an outbreak of the same thing and it claimed 9 of 10 bloodfins - it's called cottonmouth, I would Google it and look into a preventative treatment, because you really can't see the symptoms until its too late. How long ago did that fish die? Look for white fuzzy patches around the mouth any eyes on all of your other fish.


I'll purchase some today, but I don't think that's what they had as none of the other fish had anything going on in the mouth area and there weren't any white spots, it almost just looked like her lips were rolled up into her mouth or something.

It's been about 2-3 weeks since my last fish death I believe (not counting the accidental frying of my fish with the heater) and the fish I added recently look healthy and active, I'm hoping the worst is behind us.



holly12 said:


> Very nice! (LOVE the tiki hut with the water wheel!) Does an air pump/stone run that or is it just turning in the current? (The fish must love hiding it it). Awww, you're ABNP makes me miss mine! If we didn't live so far apart I would have given you mine. (Do you know yet if yours is a male or female? I had a girl). The shrimp is cute! He looked surprised when the pleco came out from under the hut!
> 
> I really like your plants too!


Thank you  The water wheel is run by an air pump that also blows bubbles up the chimney. I have my pump connected into a divider (or whatever that piece of plastic is called that one tube goes into and 3-5 come out) so I can control the amount of air going through it and I turned the hut down pretty low because the chimney releases some pretty large bubbles that surprise/scare the fish and the water wheel turns too quickly under full airflow. 

The shrimp love hiding under the hut and under the other large ornament you saw in there. It's funny, when I start feeding the fish about 3-4 shrimp rush out from under the hut and another 3-4 from a small dime-sized hole in the other ornament - they know what's up. The pleco has also seemed to take quite a liking to the hut as well, he's usually in/on it. The fish like to hide on top of the hut under the fake palm trees and sometimes hang out on the porch (where shrimp enjoy hanging upside down). When I took the fish out to put my eco-complete in, I thought one of the shrimp tried committing suicide by jumping under the water wheel (when it was turned on to full power) only to see him be shot up after completing half a turn..it was pretty funny.

If you noticed in the video the one Amazon Sword isn't doing too well but the Anubias look good - a few of them are sprouting new leaves. I think I'm going to take out the Sword and buy 2-3 more Anubias. I am contemplating moving the ornaments around slightly so that I have a little more room for plants but don't know for sure. The fish seem to prefer the plants and the planted side of the tank in general as opposed to other side which I think has a fairly strong current because of the airstone and the filter. When the fish swim in front of the tank on the side with the filter, they get turned at a near 45 degree angle due to the current lol.

The shrimp definitely are cute...they have a lot of personality for being such small invertebrates. Some of the big ones like swimming at the top of the tank more than being at the bottom, and when I feed the fish the shrimp start swimming around freely trying to grab food, usually to no avail, but it's still funny to watch.

No idea if the plec is a male or female. I know he/she won't grow bristles for a while as he/she's still pretty young. If I get a lot of bristles it's a male, if not it's a girl right? How long will it take to know?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

If your substrate isn't some type of nutrient rich substrate, then just get some root tabs for the Amazon. It will take a week or two, but it will perk up. Hard to kill them. If you kill an Amazon sword, you should just give up the whole planted tank idea . Mine are huge (if you saw the pics I recently posted) and I haven't put a single fert tab under them in the 10 months I have them, only Eco-complete. I've read that Eco-complete is inert, but if the way these have grown is how plants grow in inert substrates, then I see no reason to go high dollar and get some type of MTS fortified substrate. JMO.


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

The Pleco will probably stake his/her claim under the hut and keep everyone else away from that spot. (Mine took over the inside of the log and chased everyone else out). Not sure how old they are when they get bristles..... I had mine for 9 months and she never grew any...... she wasn't teeny tiny when I got her either, so she had to have been close to a year.

I have one of those air line divider thingys too..... I think it's called a valve splitter or something.... right now it's running the mini-filters to both my 10g and cycling 20g. I like that you can change the flow so it's not so hard. (It's good to have a valve splitter anyway to bleed off excess air if you are slowing the pump down. If you don't the pump is super loud and wears out the impeller quickly!)

As for not being able to kill Amazon swords (jrman): Uh oh, I have one that has some leaves that are turning yellow..... maybe it's just too close to the heater. When I move tanks I'll put it away from the heater. I use a pretty good fertilizer that has made all the other plants explode in size, so maybe it's the heat. Still trying to figure out if the light on my new tank will be ok for all my mid - low light plants. It's hard to get the right answer (everyone says something different, lol). My 10g has a PowerGlo 14W T8 light and the plants have been doing fantastic! The new tank has a Marineland Natural Daylight F15(watts) T8, plus it sits across from West facing sliding glass doors..... I'm hoping that's enough light. Don't want to have to buy a new light fixture!


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