i3k
Aquarium Advice FINatic
So I had this electronic gift certificate from petco.com in my email for about a year now. Decided to purchase some fish from them for one of my 30gal tanks since it was kind of empty. All I had in there was 1 green tiger barb and 5 tetra serpaes. The tiger barb is around 2" and the tetras are all 1". Had them for about 3 years now and never had a problem. So everything was good and the tank was ready for new mates. I decided to purchase 7 mickey mouse platys and 6 more tiger barbs along with 1 pleco. I ordered 6 barbs because petco suggested to keep the barbs in a school of 5 or more and in odd numbers? Is this correct?
So I placed my order and within 2 days it was shipped. Arrived the morning after it was shipped via UPS. I got the box and started to open it up right away. When I opened the box I examined all the bags to see if they were alright. Right away I noticed some of the tiger barbs were not active and not responding much. So I had to dump them into the aquarium asap. I opened the bag and poured some of the aquarium water into the bag for 5 minutes just to get them up to the aquarium temperature. Then I put all the barbs in the tank. One of them darted up and jumped out of the tank and landed right next to me. I put him back in and thought maybe my water is bad. Checked the water for ammonia, nitrite and pH levels. All results were good. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and pH was around 7.5. The barb that jumped out wasn't doing good at all. He was swimming sideways and chilling against the front of the aquarium. I did notice my temperature was a bit high @ 80 degrees. So I turned the heater down and decided to fill my "emergency bucket" which is just a 10 gal plastic trash bucket I've been using for emergencies. I took that barb out with my hand and placed him in the bucket.(yep i used my hand because he was pretty much not swimming and wasn't even trying to get away) He lasted about an hour and died. I then noticed another tiger barb wasn't doing so well. He was also on the bottom barely swimming. About 20 min later he was laying on his side. I took him out and placed him in the bucket. He lasted another 15 min and died 30 min later I check on the fish and I see yet another tiger barb laying on it's side...wtf are you kidding me...same deal...took him out the aquarium and he died in the bucket 30 min later. At this point I'm pissed at petco for sending me these fish. They were either sick or they didn't package them right. As I said when I opened the box some of the barbs were looking bad.
After the 3 barbs died I kept checking up on the rest of the fish and they seemed to be doing good.
But the day was not over. To make it all worse around 7PM our electricity cut out because of the high winds. Half of the block was in the dark. Now, usually these interruptions last about a minute or two and then the power kicks back in. But this time it just wasn't switching back in. About two hours passed and still no power. I checked on the new fish with a flashlight and noticed all the platys were sitting on the bottom not moving and hardly breathing. I mean they were just anchored to the gravel and not moving at all. Is that how platys sleep? or is it because my filter wasn't working? The electricity didn't kick back in until 2am. By that time I was just tired and was glad that the filters were working again and hoping I didn't find any more dead fish in the morning.
Woke up around 9am and right away checked on the fish. To my surprise the rest of the fish seem to be doing fine. All the platys are swimming and look very colorful. I fed them some tubifex worms and they were all eating.
I now need to get a few more tiger barbs from my local fish store. I guess I won't be buying fish from petco anymore.
So I placed my order and within 2 days it was shipped. Arrived the morning after it was shipped via UPS. I got the box and started to open it up right away. When I opened the box I examined all the bags to see if they were alright. Right away I noticed some of the tiger barbs were not active and not responding much. So I had to dump them into the aquarium asap. I opened the bag and poured some of the aquarium water into the bag for 5 minutes just to get them up to the aquarium temperature. Then I put all the barbs in the tank. One of them darted up and jumped out of the tank and landed right next to me. I put him back in and thought maybe my water is bad. Checked the water for ammonia, nitrite and pH levels. All results were good. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and pH was around 7.5. The barb that jumped out wasn't doing good at all. He was swimming sideways and chilling against the front of the aquarium. I did notice my temperature was a bit high @ 80 degrees. So I turned the heater down and decided to fill my "emergency bucket" which is just a 10 gal plastic trash bucket I've been using for emergencies. I took that barb out with my hand and placed him in the bucket.(yep i used my hand because he was pretty much not swimming and wasn't even trying to get away) He lasted about an hour and died. I then noticed another tiger barb wasn't doing so well. He was also on the bottom barely swimming. About 20 min later he was laying on his side. I took him out and placed him in the bucket. He lasted another 15 min and died 30 min later I check on the fish and I see yet another tiger barb laying on it's side...wtf are you kidding me...same deal...took him out the aquarium and he died in the bucket 30 min later. At this point I'm pissed at petco for sending me these fish. They were either sick or they didn't package them right. As I said when I opened the box some of the barbs were looking bad.
After the 3 barbs died I kept checking up on the rest of the fish and they seemed to be doing good.
But the day was not over. To make it all worse around 7PM our electricity cut out because of the high winds. Half of the block was in the dark. Now, usually these interruptions last about a minute or two and then the power kicks back in. But this time it just wasn't switching back in. About two hours passed and still no power. I checked on the new fish with a flashlight and noticed all the platys were sitting on the bottom not moving and hardly breathing. I mean they were just anchored to the gravel and not moving at all. Is that how platys sleep? or is it because my filter wasn't working? The electricity didn't kick back in until 2am. By that time I was just tired and was glad that the filters were working again and hoping I didn't find any more dead fish in the morning.
Woke up around 9am and right away checked on the fish. To my surprise the rest of the fish seem to be doing fine. All the platys are swimming and look very colorful. I fed them some tubifex worms and they were all eating.
I now need to get a few more tiger barbs from my local fish store. I guess I won't be buying fish from petco anymore.