Fish fiasco?

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sarahdaydreams

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Nov 20, 2018
Messages
1
So my mom decided to surprise my 3 year old with a 5.5 gallon glo fish fishtank. She then took him out later at night and bought 2 tiger barbs and 2 danios. From everything I read, we've got the following problems:

Both barbs and danios needs to be in larger schools of at least 5.
Tank can't support anything more than the 4 fish.
Danios hang out at the top
Barbs hang out at the bottom, hiding in the plants

We've had them for about 6 weeks and I'd really like to do right by these fish. The barbs hide all day. I'm really not sure how much food they're actually getting. I try to spread it out at feeding time, but they're just hiding down there in the plants. They will dart back and forth, and are definitely more active when the light is off and we're not moving.

The danios seem fine, though they are almost always in the top 1/4 of the fish tank.

We have been doing weekly cleaning, but have had an algae problem anyway. Introduced a nerite snail to help us out. Mervin is doing really well!

Any advice on how to improve conditions for these guys would be appreciated. Do we need to suck it up and get a larger fish tank? Get some more barbs so they feel comfortable in numbers? Really wish they had bought just one type of fish. :\
 
I would get a larger tank. The fish you have are very active and need space. You might be a able to take advantage of one of those dollar per gallon sales.
Talk to the place you bought the fish and see if they will take any back.
 
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