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I just started cycling a 40 gallon tank last Wednesday. I plan to create a species tank with about 12 tiger barbs.
On Friday, I added the first 4 tigers. Today, I noticed that one of the barbs floats almost vertically when coming to rest. It also seems a bit more distended than the other 3. Ammonia levels seem fine after testing. It still seems relatively active, the 4 fish seem to chase each other playfully around the tank. But when it comes to rest, its nose drops almost straight down. Just want to know if this is a problem. Also, wondering whether tiger barbs will do well on regular tropical flake with occasional supplementation with freeze dried blood worms as I do with my other community tank of mixed tetras??

Yes, that does sound like a definite problem, but I don't know what to say. Your ammonia might be ok, but how are your nitrites? ...And the food you mentioned will be fine for the fish.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

I didn't think nitrites would elevate this quickly in the cycle, but I'll do a 20% water change in the morning and see what happens. I was wondering whether the fish was constipated since it seems a little chunkier than the others. I've read that fish usually rest on the bottom though when this is the case, any input??

ok, they float vertically, because they are looking for food, all my tigers do this, its what they do. A pretty good way to tell if its sick, is it look at the colour of it, if its extremely dull all the time, i would be saying its sick. If the other 3 barbs pick on it, its probably sick.

And tiger's aren't really fussy on what they are giving to eat, mine eat frozen foods, flakes, pellets, peas. So your pretty much safe with what you wanna feed them. Just try and make it good quality stuff.

So yeah, any other queries just fire away.

P.S About 6 of my barbs right at this moment are floating vertically