Fish acting odd after upgrade - HELP!

[jjwebb86]

I just upgraded my 10 gallon aquarium to a 20 gallon. Here are my parameters:
pH: 7.0 - 7.2 (can't tell the difference)
Ammonia: 0.50 ppm
Nitrite: 0.25 ppm
Nitrate: 40 or 80 (also can't tell the difference in color, both look the same to me)
I have 5 Tiger barbs that are usually fairly docile but today are swimming like they have a renewed sense of energy. I'm not sure whether this is good or a bad sign. The other day I sent my husband to the store to get an (ONE) algae eater and he came home with an algae eater AND two fiddler crabs. Which I have discovered live in brackish water not fresh, and need air not an aquarium. So now I'm going to need to set up another whole environment for the crabs... For now they are in the aquarium though. So to make better sense of all this, I had a 10 gallon aquarium, knew I was going to be upgrading soon so I got an algae eater (was having algae problems) but ended up with an algae eater and 2 fiddler crabs. I already had 5 Tiger Barbs. The 2 fiddler crabs will be removed in the next day or two and placed in their own environment. About a week after I got the algae eater I got to buy my 20 gallon tank. I saved all the water from my 10 gallon tank. The filter and other equipment I had in my 10 gallon I had purposely bought for a 20 to 30 gallon tank so I just moved all that over as well. My question after all of this explaining is should I go ahead and do a water change even though I just set it up 3 days ago? And should I be testing their water daily?


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[wildroseofky]

Your tank is going through a mini cycle. The bacteria has to grow to keep up with the new bio load. You need to do water changes, daily or twice a day, to keep the ammonia at least below .25, nitrite at 0, and nitrate down to around 20. Nitrite is highly toxic to fish and even a little can harm them. It will take a week or two until the bacteria catch up and then you can go back to once a week partial water changes. Any time you add more fish you may have a mini cycle as the bacteria have to grow to accommodate the new tank inhabitants.

The fiddler crabs will not live long in freshwater. Can you take them back? The store should take them back if they did not check to see if you needed freshwater inhabitants or saltwater inhabitants. If you want to keep, set them up in your 10 gallon with the correct conditions.

 

[Angela1108]

+1 to asking if the store will take the crabs back. Even if it is just temporarily. The longer they stay in fresh instead of brackish they will get weaker and weaker and will be susceptible to other things too


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