well....hey my friends...here is our update....the stress of 2 fishy cycles finally took their toll on two of our beloved fish.
just as i was contemplating the incompatibility issues and the schools of fish i should be making etc....maybe starting up another tank.......the x ray fish died.
(actually petsmart TOLD us she was an x-ray but i found out she was
a see-through zebra fish used for cancer research --HOW PETSMART WAS SELLING THEM I WILL NEVER KNOW!)
anyway...she was just dead one morning. no fin nipping type activity..i believe it was the stress from the 10 g tank and then the fishy cycle in the new tank..she was prety stressed from all of it...
i guess i was hoping once the tank cycled( as it has.)...everyone would be okay.
then tiger barb met the same fate. she had been pretty stressed from the long two-tank fishy cycle too. it was pretty upsetting. i really really loved her so much.
no signs of of fin nipping from rosy barb or black mollie or anyone else....
i think both died from cycling stress. they were the two i had been worried about.
water has been perfect..i've been testing every day.
although after both deaths i vacuumed and did a water change. ......
water still perfect and has been for a long while now. it's been probably since may 10th or so since the tank cycled. ....we didn't realize it until later though --because we never got the nitrate readings.
so--"school" decision made for us.
.....we decided to increase the rosy barb school.
we got a small pleco who is albino and won't grow too big and we got one male rosy barb and 2 females.
it seems to have given the big male rosy a few other guys to chase around and the tank seems playful but peaceful.
we are sad about the fish deaths of course.....but we are embracing our schools of neon tetras and rosy barbs. we still have one tough black mollie....she seems so happy ...
so that is our update. thanks to all for sending good thoughts and advice while we worked our way through these two fishy cycles. it was stressful on the fish AND on us! i wish i could save someone else all that stress.
do a fishless cycle!
as if i know anything LOL oh well...i know what we've been through in trying to keep everyone alive during a disasterous 10g fish cycle and then transferring eveyone to a 36 g and doing it again. it was just too much for most everyone.
the only ones who survived the two cyclings were---one male rosy barb--one female rosy barb..one black mollie and one neon tetra.
by the way i still feel like i should write to Petsmart and gently beeseech them to not let little families like ours buy so many different species for their little 10 g tank. would it help? ...
i hope some others learn from our ignorant mistake.
anyway....here we are....this is our tank.
two male rosy barbs
3 female rosy barbs
one black mollie
one pleco
3 neon tetras (we plan to add to that school next)
all in a 36 g tank fully cycled and testing perfectly right now.
i'm sure i will have more problems along the way but i feel like we did get on the other side of one giant mountain. thanks for holding my hand along the way.
