New fish acting strange

[Tawls]

Hello, something that's bothering me and not sure what's going on. Have tried to add fish to my planted tank over the last week and each time it's the same. All but 3 of my current stock have came from petco, 5 halrequin rasbora, 5neon tetra. 3 cherry barbs . My 3 pepperd Cory's came from a lfs.
Have had 3 of the neons and 4 of the harlequin in the tank for 3 weeks now. The tank water tests as follows
PH 7.0
Ammonia. 0.0
Nitrites. 0.0
Nitrates. 20ppm
Kh. 14
Phosphate .25
.
2 days ago I bought 5 cherry barbs , after 25 min of adding tank water to the floating bag slowly I took them out and released them into the tank, within 2 minutes the 2 males were swimming upside down, I transferd them to a new tank I was setting up, its water is from the tap at
Ph8.4
Ammonia .50
Nitrites. 0.0
Nitrates 10ppm
The 3 females have been fine and never acted like that , the males are acting normal in my other tank, I had the exact same problem a
Week Ago with the corys from the lfs. 1 acted dead within minutes and the other 2 were fine, moved the one to the other tank and after 6 days he's in the planted tank Doing fine.

Have no idea what's going on, other then the ph difference. do I need to go for a much longer and slower acclimation time using a drip as sometimes done with shrimp? Or something else going on?

 

[Hholly]

Are you using a chemical to lower pH in the first tank? That could be messing with them. Longer acclimation may definitely help.

 

[Tawls]

No I am not, learned that lesson longtime ago, it is moderately planted and have been injecting co2

 

[Tawls]

The ph has been pretty steady since I added the plants and fired up the co2. What gets me is, neon tetras are usually the first ones to show any negative effects in tank water quality In my experience , but they have been doing great. Not one loss.

 

[Hholly]

Try acclimating for an hour and see what happens. Good luck!

 

[Tawls]

Thanks, will try that tomorrow and see how it goes !

 

[librarygirl]

So you have two tanks, one with ammonia? I wouldn't add fish to a tank with ammonia at all. As for the first tank, nitrates are a bit high at 20; maybe do a 50% water change to get them down some. Some fish are sensitive to nitrate. I'd also do a drip acclimation for a couple of hours.

 

[Tawls]

It has the ammonium from the tap water , that's after prime is used , umm in the planted tank I need nitrates for the plants yes?

 

[Tawls]

Far as the second tank, I was just in the process of planting it and initial set up, with no plans to add fish until I had cycled the tank, when I had to use it as a emergency tank for the new additions who started acting dead. It was put them there or watch them die. I check and log water tests daily on bolth tanks.

 

[Bettafanatic]

Move some media from your cycled tank over to your uncycled tank to instantly cycle it.

 

[Tawls]

Thanks for all the advice everyone, after a one hour Drip acclimation , they took to the new tank just fine. Now a day later they are going strong

 

[Hholly]

That's great!