My cherry barbs are acting weird!!

[Shellyfish]

I've bin set up for a week now, after 3 days I took a water sample to shop and they said it was fine to add fish they sold me 2 cardinals and 2 guppies. After a day 3 died and later that night the other one died! So I did a 20% water change and took the water to be tested again! They said it was good and told me to get something more hardy so I got 3 cherry barbs and one has died 2 days later. So I've done a 30% water change and the male started swimming up and down like crazy! I'm scared that they are gonna die but else can I do?

 

[HUKIT]

Welcome to Aquarium Advice,

I know they said your water was fine but could we get the actual test results such as ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings.

There is always the off chance they are selling weak stock but poor water conditions would explain this better.

Last questions, how long has the tank been set up and has the tank gone through the nitrogen cycle? Here is a good link with lots of information with regards to different methods to achieve this.

Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle and cycling. Methods for ammonia, nitrite removal.

 

[hpiguy]

I recently got some young cherry barbs and they were very timid for almost two weeks. They finally started to come out and swim and compete for food with the other fish. They spent most of their time hiding or swimming up and down the glass in the back corner. Timid to the point that I used my large bottom feeder tweezers to drop them flakes in the back a few times so they'd eat.

They just had to acclimate to new surroundings and find their niche in the tank.

As far as the water, are you neutralizing it when you add it AND also making sure you closely match the tank temp when you do a water change? Dumping cold tap water even if treated in will surely stress them out.

 

[Samzter]

I've bin set up for a week now, after 3 days I took a water sample to shop and they said it was fine to add fish they sold me 2 cardinals and 2 guppies. After a day 3 died and later that night the other one died! So I did a 20% water change and took the water to be tested again! They said it was good and told me to get something more hardy so I got 3 cherry barbs and one has died 2 days later. So I've done a 30% water change and the male started swimming up and down like crazy! I'm scared that they are gonna die but else can I do?

Welcome to AA! You didn't give your tank long enough to cycle. It can take 2-7 weeks to cycle. The bacteria hasn't had enough time to colonise. Therefore it coolant cope with the amount of fish added at once. You need to do 30% daily really for them fish to be okay. You could rehome them and start again and give your filter a chance to get a colony of beneficial bacteria going. Next time ask for the exact results. What are they testing with? API or strip? Also the fish you started off with weren't very hardy, well the cardinals weren't anyway. If I were you start with platies. Just keep up on them water changes if you can't rehome the cherry barbs. Good luck! Hope you like the site so far!