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Any advice helps. Got a 35 gallon hex tank with 3 live plants. Filter is Fluval 104, also have a pengiun 550 to aerate the water. Fish include 4 tiger barbs, 2 clown loaches, 2 golden gourami, and a synodantis petricola (pigmy cat,african) I'm using cycle, prime, and a phos-x media to remove nitrate. I'm new to this stuff, but after a week and a half, not one fish has died, all test levels except hardness are fine. I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing, if anyone has suggestions or future problems, please let me know, thanks.

The syn. petricola will probably thrive at a higher pH, but your other fish will not. Isn't that like a $40 catfish?

What do you mean by "all test levels are fine"? Could you give us exact numbers? Did you add all those fish at once?

I can see at least 2 problems. Clown loaches get WAY too big for that tank, since they need at least a 125, and tiger barbs need to be kept in a school. Otherwise they will become nippy and aggressive.

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The petricola catfish cost me $20. He's a real site, he's just starting to get involved with the other fish. The 2 clown loaches are only 2 inches in length, but someday I will have to trade them in. The tiger barbs are acting a little strange. I have 3 tigers and 1 albino tiger. The albino tiger is always fighting. Does anyone know the breeding patterns of this fish? I use the 5 in 1 test strips and the ammonia strips. The levels of nitrate are in the caution zone, but it hasn't gotten worse. The nitrite levels are normal, ph is in the higher levels, alkalinity also. Ammonia is safe. There hasn't been any spike yet. Will too much water treatment or cycle jeapordize the fish?

Water treatment? Overdosing water conditioner that removes cholrine/chloramine can be dangerous to your fish because it is chemical... Overdosing cycle should be fine as long as you don't put way too much and make the bacteria out-compete with each other and mostly die off...

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Yeah, you want to watch out that you aren't adding too many chemicals-all I add is water conditioner when doing a water change and Cycle when I start a new tank-that's it. I would be very cautious about testing your water parameters because your cycle is not complete-look out for a major nitrAte spike, especially with all those fish.
Which leads me back to your original question re. whether or not you are doing the right thing-I would suggest that you return all fish except the tiger barbs to give your tank enough time to fully cycle and perhaps get a few more barbs to fill out that school. Then after about a month when your tank is cycled, you can look into some smaller bottom feeders that would fit well in your tank, possibly smaller loaches or cory cats. And then wait awhile and maybe add a gourami or two. The point is you should not add all your fish at once, that is asking for trouble in your tank. And, quite frankly, it's boring. It's much more fun to go out shopping and buy a few more fish every 3 weeks or so until you reach your stocking levels.

HTH,
Beth

[span class="edited"][Edited by bscal 2004-07-28 16:43][/span]

okay, heres what I'm looking at right now. Nitrate=20ppm,nitrite=3.0ppm,hardness=300,alkalinity=120ppm,ph=7.4,ammonia=0.
The nitrite and hardness are my concerns. I did a 25% water change yesterday and added aqua safe to the already filtered water and no change in nitrite or hardness. The water changes are being done off the bottom with a syphon pump. Right now the tank is clear, fish are fine, but after 2 weeks the nitrite is still high. I want to add another syno petricola or a gold nugget pleco, but I don't want to jeapordize the fish. One thing I did is put the Fluval Bio Max in the second and top filter baskets. Hopefully this will improve the quality sooner rather than later. Would it be okay to add one of those fish? One more ? is about salt in fresh water. Got this stuff from Petco and they told me that it is "benifically efficient" for the enviroment. Added the dosage required, but no change. What is it with this stuff?

Just a quick update, I followed the advice of someone in this post and traded in my loaches for a gold nugget pleco. Ended up getting a mechanical filter for my powerhead. Really improved my water. In regards to my last post, my water readings have not changed. Does this mean that my tank is cycled?

Until your nitrite hits 0, your tank isn't cycled. I wouldn't have added any new fish, particularly a rather pricey one, to a tank with nitrite readings - you're risking a quick death with that. The shock alone could do it, and the fancy plecos are often sensitive little guys.

-Molly
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no. Your tank is not cycled until Ammonia is 0, nitrIte is 0, and your nitrAte is less than 40 ppm.

hope that helps