Dying Tiger Barbs

[BigFish01]

Ok as some of you probably remember I had purchased some torpedo barbs and they slowly died off over a month. Well I purchased 15 Tiger Barbs and put them into my 130 gal tank with 5 clown loaches, 1 clown pleco, and 6 skirted tetra. Now I have 7 left. Water stats are perfect.
Temp 78F
Ammonia -0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5
PH - 8.2
None of them seem to be acting weird, I just keep finding them dead stuck to the filter. Could I be getting fish that are just unhealthy?? Dont seem so out of grasp after my last two batches of fish. None of the other fish are affected. All Acting completely normal. The clowns seemed to love having a similar colored fish with them... I'm just torn up. Every time I put fish in and the tank seems so full of life then they start dying again.. Any ideas?
I would think that the clown loaches would be the most sensitive fish out of what I have but I have never had a problem with them dying what so ever.. I'm at my witts end!!

 

[BigFish01]

Now 6 left. Moved them to a 20 gal by themselves for better monitoring. Maybe they will make it...

 

[techen]

Why is your nitrate so low. How long have you had the tank, tiger barbs are known to bite and have a go with each other.

 

[Acetone]

I hate when people have a go at Tiger Barbs yes they can and I do stress CAN be nippy but the larger the shoal the less they are aggressive BUT fin nipping is not killing his tank. I would like to add that 15 is a lot to add to a tank in one go and could cause spikes unitl your media is used to the bio-load. I would have introduced them slowly. But saying that I would expect you to lose otherfish rather than just the barbs. I always add a very small bit of melafix when I do a water change about 1-2 mls for every 10 Ltrs. Did you notice if they looked thin (sunken belly) or imflammed gills?Good luck with your Fish lets hope your do not lose anymore fish.

 

[BigFish01]

I chanhe out thirty gallons a wk and every time i test it its between five and ten. Have only had twelve smaller fish in 130 gals of water. Just added barbs a week and two days ago. Is that nit right? I use an api master test kit by the way...

And five left as of this morning. No major agression either

 

[BigFish01]

They were not thin. No redness around the gills. And i tested my water daily to make sure. Mind you i am running a marineland 360 canister filter rated for a hundred gallon tank and two hob filters one rated for a hundred gallon tank and one rated for a seventy gallon tank. So wayyyy over filtered. And they were not even an inch long upon adding. Kept feeding to once a day and what they all would eat in two minutes completely. Never a trace of ammonia or nitrites at all!

 

[BigFish01]

They were not thin. No redness around the gills. And i tested my water daily to make sure. Mind you i am running a marineland 360 canister filter rated for a hundred gallon tank and two hob filters one rated for a hundred gallon tank and one rated for a seventy gallon tank. So wayyyy over filtered. And they were not even an inch long upon adding. Kept feeding to once a day and what they all would eat in two minutes completely. Never a trace of ammonia or nitrites at all!

And i dont use meds because clown loaches are very sensitive to meds..

 

[Acetone]

I have Clown loaches with my Tigers they do look stunning together. Again with the meds thats why with the melafix I add 1/10th of the recomended dose I also have a L191 Royal pleco which again is scaleless so I am very carefull with meds. I hope someone on here can identify your problem. Good Luck

 

[BigFish01]

Yes they did and tigers are very outgoing fish and enjoyable to watch. Maybe there is something in my water that barbs dont do well with but everything else does fine with? I only seem to have a problem with the barbs. Have had one clown for three years. Three of the others almost that long and one was a new arrival from craigslist a few months ago. No problems with them. My tetra are about three years old also. Pleco is about a year. Maybe i should take what i have back and try something different. I bought torpedo barbs and it was the same thing but they seemed to have swim bladrer issues... Im lost and its killing me. Thanks for tye tips so far!

Yes they did and tigers are very outgoing fish and enjoyable to watch. Maybe there is something in my water that barbs dont do well with but everything else does fine with? I only seem to have a problem with the barbs. Have had one clown for three years. Three of the others almost that long and one was a new arrival from craigslist a few months ago. No problems with them. My tetra are about three years old also. Pleco is about a year. Maybe i should take what i have back and try something different. I bought torpedo barbs and it was the same thing but they seemed to have swim bladrer issues... Im lost and its killing me. Thanks for tye tips so far!

 

[BigFish01]

Sorry about the double quote earlier. was on my phone at work... lol Anyways I took back the dead ones today and got a few more to try and some stress coat. I had the girl pick out the bigger ones of the group. Maybe the smaller ones were just not ready for all the moving.. Just a thought. Maybe they were too young and or small and it made them weaker. I also drip acclimated these ones for 2 hours at 1 drip per second until the ph matched. the last ones i floated and added water 3 times in 40 mins. Maybe I didnt acclimate them long enough. Considering they died in a week its probably a good possibility. Any thoughts?

 

[BigFish01]

Ok when I took them back to the pet store I took some of my tank water for them to test. My results from them are as follows.

Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 0
nitrate : 15
Ph : 7.5
Alkalinity : 120
Hardness : 50

Maybe i was reading the test wrong for the ph and the nitrates. Lighting is not the best down there.

Is my alkalinity high? I knew I had harder water so thats not a huge suprise.
I was thinking about getting a three stage water filter to filter my tap water before it goes into the tank. Would that make any difference? So far after five days none of my new ones have passed. But I have lost all of my previous bunch. I'm hoping these ones hold out strong. or maybe i was right about the acclimation method.. We will see i guess..

Anyone have any ideas on anything they would like to share? I'm open to suggestions.. Thanks again

 

[Zikofski]

just to note how much do you shake the ammonia bottles as you haft to shake the living hell out of the bottle to get an accurate reading but usually the inaccuracy would give you ammonia than no ammonia so you may be okay i just recently added 13 tiger barbs to my 330L tank they are amazing with clowns to and torpedo barbs looks stunning no ammonia or nitrite either in my tank so you defiantly wont have a problem.

can you get a picture of the fish in question? may have been stress due to the change in water conditions whats your water temp to?

 

[BigFish01]

Temp is 78°f. Ones in question seem to all have passed on now. Hoping the ones im lookibg after now are doing much better. So far so good. And i shake all the bottles good when i do my tests. Good tip though in sure a lot of people wouldnt know that!

 

[greenmumma141]

Wow, i am very sorry about your tiger barbs, what a mess! Your water stats look fine, I have very hard water (ph 7.8) and my barbs (tigers and greens) are fine. In fact, this whole situation seems odd to me b.c tigers seem like very hardy fish to me, so the fact that they're dying off left and right and your other fish are fine... is strange. I would look to the place that you bought them from. Is it a place you go to regularly? would you recommend it? it just seems strange. I've purchased teeny tiny tigers and they've been fine. And your acclimation process seems top notch to me as well. I don't think this is anything you're doing. Maybe someone else can spot something that I'm missing though. GL!!

 

[NorthEastFisherman]

At the beginning you said your ph was 8.2 and im pretty sure tiger barbs thrive in a tank with 7.5 pH and you were buying the smaller tiger barbs which means they arent as strong and their body cant adapt as easily as the larger fish. You say that your pH is now 7.5 pH and that your recently purchased fish are surviving so that seems like the problem i dont think it was fin nipping or a disease or parasite i think it was that either your tank and the stores tank had a large difference in pH or that your pH was way too high for the litle critters. I have 3 tiger barbs in my ten gallon and this kinda sounds like the same thing with me i bought 6 of the little ones but 2 of them were fin nippers and killed all the other males now theres one male and two females and they get along fine but theyre larger then when i bought them plus they are used to my tank now since ive had them for several months now. I hope your fish are doing better and you can buy more tigers cause they look awesome and they each have interesting personalities.