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Strangely enough, I found the smallest of my two Green Tiger Barbs sucked up against the filter intake, partially decayed head. I had purchased the fish last weekend.

I had done a 20% WC Thursday evening and checked parameters, all good. So, he/she died between Thursday and this afternoon when I discovered him/her.

I checked my water right away: 0ppm Amm; 0ppm Nitrites; 20ppm nitrates; 8 pH and 80F temp. So, all's well there...

I added some hornwort and anacharis on Wednesday, some floating, some planted. All the other fish seem "normal", swimming, nipping, chasing, etc.

I was thinking I need to do a 7 day dose of Melafix in case I have some sort of infection in my tank now. I guess any suggestions or feedback would be good. I don't want to dose so heavily that I kill my bacteria and start another cycle but, I don't feel comfortable not medicating at all.

I am guessing that it will be time to buy and set up the QT tank, and probably get a small hopsital tank ready for future use as well.

I also bought a piece of driftwood, have that soaking in a bucket, weighted down with river stones, I'll give that a few days to soak and get a much of the tannins out as I can.

Scott Im sorry you lost a TB, it does sound like the TB had something from the LFS which is bad luck.

I dont think that dosing with melafix would do any harm but unfortunatly i dont know if it would do any good. Its hard to tell if you had a bacterial Infection or not.

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
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Yeah thats a tough one, cos tigerbarbs themselves are not above a bit of cannibalism, and should one die the eyes and mouthparts are often the first part to be eaten.

What youre doing so far seems correct , but by way of a small tale I should let you know about how rubbish tB's can be about getting stuck on filters. They have a body design with limited flexibility and being a quite compact fish, when they are small if they get stuck on a filter intake they cant get off too well.Their little tail just doesnt provide the propulsion.

I lost a TB many moons ago by having a filter mounted so that there was a 10-15 mm gap between it and the tank wall. Tigerbarb goes in the gap, gets stuck, dies there. So either have filters jammed right into the corner so they cant let fish in the gap, or move the filter several inches clear of the back wall or end so there isnt a trapping space.

You state that you only just bought the TB and also it was the smallest. Two possibilities it was not a healthy fish to start off with, or it was too small and possibly a weak swimmer and just got caught in the filter intake.

Can you put some thing around the intake to stop this happening again. I believe a panty hose works well just hold it on with a rubber band. This makes it easy to remove and clean. I would steer clear from foam covers as this can put a strain on the filter pump.

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Keith

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Scott, I'm so sad to hear one of your tigers died! I hope your son isn't too upset!

The pottery that growls!

Could the rest of the school just picked on it till it got too weak since it was the smallest? I never really had much luck with the green ones, I don't know if they were just weaker to begin with or if if the rest of the school did them in.

---

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

Doedogg does have a point , tigerbarbs shoal ethics can be complicated and violent, in fact its one of the reasons I went off them a little. They do occassionally turn on each other an wipe out one of the weaker specimens.

all really good feedback, I will get something over the end of the filter intake tube... I am going to assume that he was unhealthy to begin with and either got trapped or picked on. Although I didn't notice any particular bad treatment beyond the usual TB insanity and nipping, lol. The rest of the "herd" seems to be doing well since the death...