New DP and a bit of an unexpected surprise.

[Phoenix91]

My 5 g is ready so i went to get my new DP. Everything went fine with one very large exception. I went to get 1 dp and somehow ended up with 2.

The girl in my lfs (i say local, it's a bit of a drive) was chatting away telling me about their specials and their new stock and she mentioned they had a bunch of buy 1 get 1 free deals, in retrospect i should have paid more attention. I did tell her i had a 5g and wanted 1 dp, i told her i wasn't bothered if it was male or female and she went to get my fish and i checked out the gsp's. Now i do have an accent and it's pretty strong so i can see where she might have misheard me and thought i said male and female instead of male OR female.

She bagged my fish and i stood by the till waiting to pay. She put the fish bag into another bag and i paid the price on the front of the tank. Looking back i should have checked or watched her more closely. Once i got in the car i took a peek and saw 2 dp's; a sane person would have gone back into the store and asked for 1 to be removed but 1 of them looked really skinny and i guess my pity for him/her took over. I emailed a friend who is looking for a dp and am waiting for her to get back to me.

I got home whipped out my 20g (that i bought a few weeks ago as a start to a summer reef tank project) filled it, but some bits and bobs and a filter in and acclimated them into that. I know i'm going to get grief that the tank is uncycleded but i thought a larger tank would be better than putting them both in the 5 g, that's just way too small. I plan to do large daily water changes until i get this resolved.

So... i have a bit of a predicament. The best thing would be for my friend to take one of them, but in the event she won't or can't i want to cycle the 20 g and put them both in that (goodbye nano reef tank build). If i put them both in the cycled 5 gallon and did water changes every other day until the 20g was cycled would this be okay? I can use stuff from the cycled tank to kick start the 20g and then just move all the plants and such over and break down the 5 g for use sometime in the future. today it's hood light broke anyway so i'm starting to suspect it might be useless.

I know it's not ideal but it was accidental, in the future i will watch the people getting my fish. I feel stupid that i wasn't paying close attention and let my feeling of pity for the little one get the better of me and i don't want the fishes to suffer for my mistake. If it comes to it i could take one of them back if that would be best, at least skinny has had a good feed now.

They both seem happy, both hunted snails last night, even the little skinny one now has a little belly going on.

[RTR]

The original captive/hobby breeding of DPs used 5 gallon tanks. But is does seem to shorten their lives - back then (not really that long ago) we thought that their lifespan was no more than 2 years. We have learned a lot pretty quickly.

I would put them short-term into the cycled 5 and set a 15 (or the 20) for them as soon as practical and then upgrade to either of those as permanent home.

HTH

[Phoenix91]

Great. I'll move them over to the 5 g when i get home and get the 20g cycling. I'm glad it it won't do them much harm for a few weeks to be in a 5 g, i'll just up my water changes and get them in the 20 g as son as it's ready. i bet they'll love the extra space.

[Pufferpunk]

I have to disagree with RTR on this. In a 20g, the waste will be so highly diluted with these 2 tiny fish, I do not believe it would be a problem. If you have it available, you can add Tetra's Safestart to the filter to boost the bacteria.

[Phoenix91]

So you're basically saying just leave them where they are and build the tank around them?

If i was going to do that i could just move the filter media and all the stuff inside the 5 g cycled tank over to the 20g to add bacteria. I've looked in the stores around here for tetra safestart and honestly couldn't find it. Nowhere i looked had any bacteria in a refrigerated environment that i would use, i thought buying off the shelf stuff would be a waste of money as it would likely be dead bacteria, right? or is safestart okay to use off the shelf?

they seem happy enough, both active and hunting. i left them this morning and they were playing in the bubbles made by the airstone i have in the tank. So precious!

[Pufferpunk]

Yes, move everything from the 5g over to the 20g. Tetra Safestart is not refrigerated but is live bacteria. I wouldn't use anything else off a shelf though. You can order it online but IMO, you don't really need it.

[Phoenix91]

I can do that. i suppose all the bacteria i need will already be on the plants/driftwood & filter media in the 5g. If my filter media doesn't fit in the new filter can i put the old media in the tank, say in pantyhose to transfer the bacteria until the new filter media gets a bacterial colony?

Thanks.

[xrayjeeper83]

sounds like a good plan to me

[Phoenix91]

Awesome, i'll be sure to post pics when i have everything up and running. And i really need to try and get clearer pics of the little guys.

[Phoenix91]

I've been watching button & vetted and Im glad I have them in a barebittom tank; I've noticed some black poop and some white poop. Is the white poop a sign of something? I don't know which fish it's from.

[chuckfriedrice]

Wouldnt using the water in the cycled tank help out with cycling the 20g ???

[Phoenix91]

Im going to use everything I can, probably including some of the water. I think the filter media, plants and driftwood will help.

[sevenyearnight]

The water column doesn't hold beneficial bacteria in any significant amount, it clings to surfaces.

[xrayjeeper83]

The white poop is a sign of IP's and if the one is skinny id suspect that is the one with it. Get some meds, soak your food in it before feeding. Start asap

[Phoenix91]

Which meds should i get? i looked at the petstore (okay petsmart.) and couldn't see nay that dealt with IPs, mostly just with external parasites.

i suspected the skinny one might have some because it was so skinny yesterday, not so much today.