Tiger Barbs at top of tank

[tigerbarb fan]

Just a quick question. I have a 40 gallon tank that has been running now for almost 3 weeks. I have 9 tiger barbs and 1 pictus catfish in it now. I have been doing 25% water changes every other day due to my ammonia staying at .25 to .50 ppm. My nitrates has been 0 while my Ph has been 7.0. Gh was 50-100 ppm. I have a Penguin 170 with the biowheel. I also have a UGF with a Hagen 301 powerhead which gives a nice curent. Oh and my water temp is 78

I did my water changes yesterday but noticed today my tiger barbs were all hanging out at the top of the tank. They arent acting unusual. They are chasing each other like crazy as usual and the pictus is staying in his corner of the tank. After testing the water for ammonia and nitrite, they were both higher then they had been, 1 ppm for the nitrite and almost 3 for the ammonia. I immediately did a 25% water change and the nitrite went to 0 and the ammonia dropped to 1 ppm. Is there anything else I can do to help with the ammonia?

I have tested my tap water and it doesnt read any ammonia in it. I use Proquatics water conditioner to treat my tap water before I put it in my tank to get rid of the chlorine. My penguin is getting a thin coat of "slime" (best description I can think of) on the spill way below the biowheel. The biowheel is getting some dark streeks in it which I assume would be the good bacteria, I hope

Any help or suggestins you might have would be greatly appreciated. I wish I had found this site before I had started my tank. It is a great site with lots of great people. Keep up the good work.

 

[krap101]

id say u needa a bigger filter. u might not but i think it woulda been better if u just got a emperor 400 and didnt get the powerhead and the 170. i guess it might be okay but the more it moves the water the more it filters it.

you can get ammonia chips but thatll starve ur bacteria. another thing is tehre might be some biospira around your store (not likely) but there may be some backup supply at the lfs (and still not likely)

 

[Devilishturtles]

This proably isn't likely, but do you have an another tank (cycled) around that you could put your tiger barbs and pictus into? This would give you a chance to cycle the tank. If not, how about a friends tank or maybe even a lfs that will give you some gravel, a decoration, anything with some nitrifying bacteria on it? These bacteria live on the surfaces of things, and multiply quite fast. A good injection of some in your tank will definitley help some because it sounds as if your ammonia is winning the battle right now.

Also, as to your filter query, do you know how many GPH they are pushing out? A good tank has a water turnover rate of 6-7 times per hour, so that would mean that in your 40 gallon tank, you should have ATLEAST 240 GPH flow. HTH

 

[bunebop]

I would try and find some bio-spira. I did that for my tank. To my surprise... one of the pet stores downtown was stocked up w/ the stuff! Apparently no one buys it or they talk them into something cheaper. They tried to talk me out of it giving me the "it's kinda expensive" speech. It works really well if you can find it though. Good luck.

 

[tigerbarb fan]

well the penguin runs 170 gph and the hagen 301 output is 174 gph. Im gonna look for some bio spira tomorrow. I dont know anyone else who has a tank at the moment.

 

[krap101]

but moving the water isnt really filtering it. if ya know what i mean. i heard that on a infomertial today. the oreck filter. they did this lil test. lol

 

[Devilishturtles]

krap has a point tigerbarb. Your powerhead isn't filtering the water at all, it is just making flow. If I were you, I would get a larger filter, one with atleasy 240 gph. But, since this isn't what your question was about, try adding some deco or gravel from an established aquarium and that should help your problem. The barbs were probably just stressed from the high levels.