Tiger Barbs acting weird

[jjwebb86]

I upgraded from a 10 to a 20 gallon tank a little over a month ago. I have 5 Tiger Barbs and one I believe what is a common Pleco.
This has nothing to do with my problem but I sent my husband to the store a while ago to get an algae eater (with a list of specific species that would be ok) and he came home with this fish that has already doubled in size almost. We are going to have to find it a new home soon.
Anyways back to my tank. I used all my gravel from my old tank and added a little more I had left over we never used. I also brought over my Aqueon Quiet Flow 30 and also set up the filter the tank came with (Tetra Whisper 10-30i) because I didn't feel like my filter was keeping up well with the tank.
I tested my tank at 7.6pH, 0.50 Amonia, 0.25 Nitrite and 40 Nitrate
About three days ago my husband thought he'd bring me 3 black fin sharks from Walmart (bad idea in the first place) and I had no where to place them but in my tank. Two of them died the second evening after of having them and the third the next day. I noticed their fins showed either a little bit of fun rot or signs they'd been fighting.
After the fish died I did a water change immediately but now two of my Tiger Barbs back fins look damaged and all of them aren't acting as lively as they normally do. Do I need to just do some water changes? If so how much and how often? Or do they need medicine, I have Pimafix and Melafix. If I missed anything in my description let me know, I try to know everything there is to know about my fish, I've had these for almost a year now and would have a lot of heartache of something happened to one of them!


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[jjwebb86]

Somebody please help!! Their behavior has become a little more odd, they went from being overly docile to overly active. One of them never moves around much even when he/she's feeling fine and even that one is moving around enough to make me nervous. I really don't want to wake up to my previous barbs dead!!


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[jvann]

This is strange. Sounds like stress. I may be wrong though. Get some prime and I recommend Tetra Fungus Guard. It treats both fungal and bacterial issues.

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[Catfish Lover]

The tiger barbs need a bigger tank and you need more of them, these are active fish that can be aggressive with each other especially if the group is not big enough. They develop a pecking order. Maybe one is being bullied which is causing this.

It's also possible a parasite has been introduced to your tank from the sharks. Just a heads up...NEVER buy fish from Walmart. You're just asking for something bad to happen. The people who run the tanks know nothing about fish.

Just re-read your post. It sounds like you're going through a mini cycle from upgrading. You have ammonia and nitrite.. Which is obviously not good. This is more than likely the issue with the fish. They are dying from ammonia poisoning. Do a big water change and dose with prime and continue with that until levels are appropriate.


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[jjwebb86]

I am doing a water change in a few minutes and I'll go get some prime. I'll retest after the water change. Thank you for both of your advice! I would NEVER of bought fish from Walmart myself but I couldn't just kill the fish my husband had just bought and knew they wouldn't take them back either. Hopefully nothing was brought in to my tank with them and it's just the mini cycle. We will see in a day or two I suppose!


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[Pamiam]

This is from my own experience on behavior only...

I started with 6 tigers barbs...1 male...5 females. As baby fish, they were put into my 29 gallon which they did fine in for about 2 months. When they reached the size of a quarter, they quit swimming around the tank and hung around under my plants in the corner. I then moved them to my 55 gallon where they flourished. They swim around everywhere and are about the size of a silver dollar.

They are not aggressive with any tank mates nor each other. I believe this is due to plenty of plants, they are well fed and I have a ratio of 1 male to 5 female.

They are housed with a malabar puffer, gold gourami, male betta, cories and bristlenose plecos.