my 5 gal tank

Question
My husband and I recently got a 5 gallon tank for our 3 year old to start learning how to care for fish, Neither of us know anything about fish, and got a Tiger barb and another fish to start. Shortly after we got a snail, and they all did really well for about 3 months, but then one died, (I'm not sure what type of fish it was) I realized at that point that I hadn't cleaned the tank, and that it was pretty dirty, so I threw out the dead one, and cleaned the tank, then cleaned it once more 2 months after. about 2 months later my snail died, so I cleaned the tank again,and we went out and got one more Tiger barb. ( unfortunately, the person helping me must not have known anything about the species) so we got home and introduced it to the tank after a few days I noticed that the new fish (which was slightly smaller than the one we already had) was chasing our older one. I started to read up on them at that point, and found out that they should be in a bigger tank w/at least 6. Anyway, we only have one tank so I left them alone, but soon noticed the older fish had multiple holes and tears in his fins, and now he's suddenly gone, nowhere to be found I took out the decorations thinking he was inside one, but can't find him!? I KNOW he was there yesterday, but, not today, there are no pieces of fish in the tank, and my son cannot reach them. So any ideas what could have happened? And should we try to return our barb and get another breed for our tank now? Just not sure what to do next.

Answer
Hi Miriam
Sorry to hear about your fish trouble.

Its very true tiger barbs must be in groups and that is hard to accomplish in a 5 gallon tank. You'd be better off skipping rambunctious tiger barbs all together and stick to small peaceful fish.

But please please read up on proper fish care. I'm not trying say you are an irresponsible keeper-- just I have the fishes best interest in mind, and I feel if I can help prevent them from being in a bad situation I will try my best. Hey, you have my cheers for coming here to ask for help in the first place! ;-)

All aquariums must go through what's called cycling. I'm not sure if you have read about that before but its a process where special bacteria develop in your tank on all the surfaces. Fish put out ammonia from their waste and this is very toxic to them. The bacteria develop as the ammonia appears to start converting it into what's called "nitrite" which is still toxic...But this is needed so more bacteria develop that convert nitrite into completely safe "nitrate"

Nitrate is kept under control by your regular partial water changes.

But of course new aquariums don't have enough bacteria present yet and you must be very careful when stocking it for the next several weeks. You should choose about 2 small hardy fish such as male guppies for starters to get your tank started cycling. I say males because females give birth to live babies almost every month and soon the tank would be overpopulated.

*After adding the "cycling" fish its really best if you can monitor the ammonia level with a simple test kit you can buy at your petstore. Using this will let you know when it is safe to add a few more fish and when your tank is completely cycled.

*Make sure to do a 50% water change when you spot a buildup of ammonia... (doing water changes will not stop your tank from cycling)

*Most aquariums take about 4-6 weeks to cycle

*You'll know when your tank is cycled when the ammonia and nitrites are ZERO and the nitrates have built up.

*Then you can add a few more fish. But always stock slowly and stick to no more than about 5 small fish total.

Some good fish/criters for such small tanks are-

(Unheated tank)
*Guppies
*White cloud mountain minnows
*platies

(heated)
*Neon tetras
*Dwarf gourami
*Otocinlus catfish

(Critters)
*Mystery snails
*Ghost shrimp
*African dwarf frogs
(All are compatible with fish)

I hope this helps and best of luck!
Karen~