Hi, I'm new - 26 gallon aquarium

[Lycanthi]

Hello, I'm new to this forum.

I've kept tropical fish for around 15 years now. Prior to that I had goldfish. At one point I had 4 tanks set up, but I've downsized to just the one 26 US gallon tank for now (the hobby became too much work). It's 31 inches long and 12 inches wide (80cm x 30cm).

I have 1 rosy barb (left over from a group of 6) and 3 glowlight danios (the last 3 in the shop). I had 2 panda garras for a while with them, but they caught some kind of fungus / cotton wool disease and died one by one. A rosy barb died in between the 2 garras so I wonder if he also caught the same thing? I also have loads of mts and some assassin snails which have been breeding (I saw a baby assassin recently and there's eggs all over the plants and driftwood).

My water is moderately soft and neutral out of the tap, tank water is 6.5 pH and negligible KH. The tank has driftwood and loads of plants. Tank is currently unheated and drops as low as 18 / 19C (that's the coldest it gets in winter indoors as I live in a subtropical region). Water temp is usually around 25 / 26C in spring, summer and autumn, but it can peak in summer at 29 / 30C (I have lost barbs at this temperature).

I'm debating whether or not to get more rosy barbs, given that they don't seem to survive the summer heat. The glowlights were added last autumn so I don't know if they can take it either. I'm also wondering if I should keep the tank subtropical or go back to tropical temps so I can keep a wider range of species (which hopefully won't suffer in the summer).

Any advice or suggestions would be welcome as I'm not really sure what I want to do with it right now and it seems kind of empty with the few inhabitants that are left (the glowlights swim around in the moss and under the driftwood most of the time the lights are on).

Thanks for reading if you got this far!

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello and welcome

The reason you lose the fish in the heat is usually from lack of oxygen. The warmer the water, the less oxygen it holds. Barbs and Danios are active swimmers so they use a lot of oxygen so unless you increase the aeration when the temps rise, the fish don't get enough so they die. Here in Florida, it gets into the 90s in the summer and the fish farms still keep their barbs and danios in them in the summer. They just add extra water movement and aeration.

As for should you keep the tank the way it is or change it, that's up to you. If you don't want the extra work needed for the tank the way it is, change it. If you are, I'd add more Rosey Barbs to increase the size of the school as well as adding more of the Danios.
As for changing to more tropical temperatures, you are still going to have to increase the aeration. It's important to observe your fish to know when you have added enough. Their respirations will be slower when there is enough oxygen.

Hope this helps.

 

[Lycanthi]

Hello and welcome

The reason you lose the fish in the heat is usually from lack of oxygen. The warmer the water, the less oxygen it holds. Barbs and Danios are active swimmers so they use a lot of oxygen so unless you increase the aeration when the temps rise, the fish don't get enough so they die. Here in Florida, it gets into the 90s in the summer and the fish farms still keep their barbs and danios in them in the summer. They just add extra water movement and aeration.

As for should you keep the tank the way it is or change it, that's up to you. If you don't want the extra work needed for the tank the way it is, change it. If you are, I'd add more Rosey Barbs to increase the size of the school as well as adding more of the Danios.
As for changing to more tropical temperatures, you are still going to have to increase the aeration. It's important to observe your fish to know when you have added enough. Their respirations will be slower when there is enough oxygen.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice!

I suppose it could be low oxygen contributing to the deaths. The barbs that died seemed to get thin, pale, and listless, stopped eating, and then died. At that time there had been no new tank additions for months, so I thought maybe the stress of the heat (combined with the fin nipping amongst the barbs perhaps) could be weakening them and letting bacteria or some other infection take hold.
But yes, it could have been low o2 levels causing stress, although none of them were gasping at the top or rapid gilling.

The filter is a HOB and does add some aeration, and when the lights are on the plants are producing o2, but I will add an airstone to the tank and see if that helps for next summer.

One of the barbs died by ramming itself into a hole in the driftwood headfirst and getting stuck there (I've had this piece of driftwood for years and it's the first time I've seen this happen, poor fish). I suspect this death was caused by fighting amongst the barbs and the victim fish fleeing straight into the driftwood ?.

The barbs were fine with the other tank inhabitants but seemed to chase and nip each other frequently. They probably need a bigger shoal than 6, but I cant really have a large shoal of them without moving them to a larger tank as I'm worried about bioload. I do have an empty 55 gallon and I'm tempted to set it up and fill it with barbs and danios... but I'd have to find a space to put it in... and then the thought of water changes on it fills me with dread ? I remember what a backache it was last time lugging buckets.

If I could find female rosy barbs I'd buy 5 of them for my lone male, but I can't seem to find females in shops (unless the females are now bred to be the same colour as the males?). Maybe with only 1 male there'd be less nipping. These were the first barbs I'd ever owned so I may have underestimated the conspecific aggression a bit....

 

[Andy Sager]

Once again adjustments need to be made when the temps rise. The thinning also sounds like there was not enough food to compensate for the calories being burned due to the higher temps.
If you can't get females or can only get one or two females, do not add any extra males. The males will fight each other for the right to breed with any females present so either go with a mixed school of 1 male per 3 females or an all male school. You might even want to switch to the long finned Rosys. The longer fins tend to slow the fish down some.
I recently saw a new " Super Red Rosy Barb out of Europe and those may have red colored females. You'd have to check. I don't know. Supposedly they are not red from color food.

The situation with your Panda Garras sounds like Columnaris. Sadly, many of today's fish are weakened by being raised in heavily or weakly medicated water on the farms so it's always best to place all new fish in quarantine for at least 3-4 weeks for observation or medicating prior to placing them in your main tank. This gives the fish a chance to get used to new foods, new lighting patterns, water change schedules , etc without the added strain of competing with established fish that know all of these things. That is stress reduction.

 

[Lycanthi]

Once again adjustments need to be made when the temps rise. The thinning also sounds like there was not enough food to compensate for the calories being burned due to the higher temps.
If you can't get females or can only get one or two females, do not add any extra males. The males will fight each other for the right to breed with any females present so either go with a mixed school of 1 male per 3 females or an all male school. You might even want to switch to the long finned Rosys. The longer fins tend to slow the fish down some.
I recently saw a new " Super Red Rosy Barb out of Europe and those may have red colored females. You'd have to check. I don't know. Supposedly they are not red from color food.

The situation with your Panda Garras sounds like Columnaris. Sadly, many of today's fish are weakened by being raised in heavily or weakly medicated water on the farms so it's always best to place all new fish in quarantine for at least 3-4 weeks for observation or medicating prior to placing them in your main tank. This gives the fish a chance to get used to new foods, new lighting patterns, water change schedules , etc without the added strain of competing with established fish that know all of these things. That is stress reduction.

I don't think it was lack of food, I always fed enough that all got their fill and some would fall down to the sand (and either get picked up later by the barbs or eaten by the snails). In any case I agree with not getting any more males. I might not be able to source females since my local fish shop (where I originally got the rosies from) is having supply issues and has very little livestock available (just whatever they can get from local breeders and their own breeding fish). I'll see what I can find in the other shops in drivable distance.

The garras and the danios were quarantined for longer than 4 weeks each. The garras never showed signs of any infection until after 6 months in the main tank. They did come from a chain pet store that had signs of disease in their other tanks.

The danios looked like they had something when I got them home (they had white lips) so were treated for "cotton wool disease" in the QT (not antibiotics, they aren't available in Europe without prescription) before release into main tank. The meds didnt do a lot so I treated them with salt too (this seemed to clear it). The danios were symptom free for 2 weeks before adding them to MT and still have not shown any symptoms (it's been months since they were added). They came from a different chain pet store that had better looking tanks without any obvious disease.

If it was indeed columnaris it was a very slow acting strain and doesn't seem to negatively affect the danios. I suppose I might eventually lose the other barb if it is indeed columnaris, which would be a shame as he's really pretty and has quite some personality.

I'm going to try to up the shoal of the danios to 7 or 8 as I think they'll be happier in a larger group (although they seem pretty happy even as a trio) and I'll look for a few females for the male barb. If I can't get females I'll just let him live out his life alone (sadly).

Thanks for your suggestions ?

 

[Andy Sager]

There's a lot to address here so hopefully I cover it all.
Columnaris actually has 4 different strains of bacteria that get categorized as Columnaris. Each strain will react different to different meds. Salt alone rarely cures it. It's possible the white lips came from rubbing against the net when they were caught. Salt WILL heal that. What meds did you try to use that didn't work?

As for the Garras, the plot thickens. If they were fine for 6 months, it's unlikely it was something that came in with them. Something happened in the tank ( i.e. water quality went down. They were fighting each other, they got picked on by another fish, etc) that affected them and they broke down. Both fish should not have died at the same time if it were illness. Without pictures and just descriptions, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what's happening. Some conditions look similar to others so it's the other facets that need to be taken into consideration when making a diagnosis.
This is a free download to a book with one of the best diagnostic flow charts for the average hobbyist to use. ( https://pdfcoffee.com/handbook-of-fish-diseases-smaller-sizepdf-pdf-free.html ) It's good to have handy when you have disease issues or the fish are having health issues. It's an older book so not all the medications it suggests may be available anymore or are under different brand names but the diagnosis is the key. Once you know what you are dealing with, you can treat with what's available today for that condition.

Lastly, it's always better to NOT take sick fish home to try and cure them vs waiting for healthy fish to be available. Even with healthy looking fish, you should still quarantine because "ya never know" and it also gives them time to adjust. Considering your limitations to medications, you could be spending a lot of unnecessary money on sick fish that you can't cure.

Hopefully you can get some ladies for your Rosy Barb.