Tiger Barbs Dying

[kuhliloacher]

I have a 55 gal hex aquarium in my living room. It seems to be near impossible to keep Tiger Barbs alive for long periods of time. They seem to be bloated and have red hemorrages on their bellies when they die. I know it is not Dropsy. I have treated with Maracyn Plus with no luck. I add Stress Coat, Stress Zyme and Immune Plus to the tank on a weekly basis. I keep my PH at 7.0 with Proper PH when needed, usually once a month or so. I test Ammonia, PH, Nitrite and Nitrate on a regular basis. All are ok. I also do water changes on a regular basis. I keep the temp at 20c/78f. I went to my LFS this evening to discuss my problem. The first thing they told me was this seems to be a result of pollutants, not disease. The second thing they told me was the shape of the tank may be a factor, being hexagonal. Anyone agree with this? I have also started using Chemi-Pure filter medium in my external filter, and discarded my carbon. I smoke alot in my house and my girlfriend loves to burn candles. I have a pretty good suspicion that this may have alot to do with my problem. I also have a 14 gallon hex in the bedroom, and those fish are doing great. But there are no Barbs in that one. I need help! I have spent a small fortune on Barbs. Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[karmagl]

ok many things involved here. For one yes hex can be bad because there is not a lot of water surface especially if you are smoking in the house. smoke and candles can both pollute your water anything in the air can. I don't spray anything fabreeze candles cleaner in the room with the tanks as they can all get in the air and into your water. Also are you sure it's not dropsy I just got over a bad case of this and they had the same things. Red ulcers are never good. I would try using pima fix as it's pretty much all natural. Sounds like an internal infection so I would get pima fix, have her burn candles in the other room and try to at least smoke by the window. Hex is harder but not at all impossible. Just keep checking your water for changes.

 

[dixaisy930]

What kind of filtration are you running in the 55 hex? I would make sure there is alot of water turbulance to increase the O2 in the tank. A spray bar might also be helpful in making sure thewater is flowing through the whole tank (i.e. making sure the bottom part of the tank is getting enough water flow).

 

[kuhliloacher]

I use an AquaClear 300 filter and a UGF with a 402 power head. The water flow seems to be quite good as all of my plants have a gentle sway to them and any solids that reach the bottom are sucked down through the gravel. The problem I am having seems to be especially bad with green Tiger Barbs. I just flushed my last green one, he was bloated and swimming upside down. I have 4 out of 5 regular tiger barbs left, which are pretty much original since I set my tank up about 4 months ago. I lost the one during a gravel vaccum, presumably to severe stress. I have added three seperate batches of green Tiger Barbs, always 5 at a time. I now have none. White Tiger Barbs also seem to suffer, but not as bad as the green ones. I bought 5 Odessa Barbs about a month ago. I have 3 left. I have no idea what happened to the other 2, they just seemed to vanish. I did have a bout with ich and fungus about 2 months ago, which took a huge toll on my Barbs and whiped out 7 out of 8 of my Serpaes. Somehow my heater became unplugged and the temp dropped to 70. All hell broke loose after that. I got those problems under control. This current situation has been going on for about 4 weeks now, and my green and white barbs are dieing one by one. about 3 weeks ago I boght 3 green and 2 white barbs to replace the ones that died. They are now all gone. I try to keep my Barbs in groups of 5. I am not having any luck.

What kind of filtration are you running in the 55 hex? I would make sure there is alot of water turbulance to increase the O2 in the tank. A spray bar might also be helpful in making sure thewater is flowing through the whole tank (i.e. making sure the bottom part of the tank is getting enough water flow).