Questions from Dave

[kimmers318]

What size tank is this? Pretty tiger barbs you have there.
Cycling has not happened in your tank....did you read up on fishless cycling? In my experience, using cycle is hit or miss, I have had it help, I have had it not do diddly. You need some source of ammonia for the bacteria that you want to start to culture, whether it be from fish food and waste or from pure ammonia you add yourself. Even if the cycle will help, there has to be ammonia for it to eat up, or you were just wasting money. Read the free aquarium ebook (link on the left) and get a better understanding of cycling.
Do not worry, we can help you get thru this with your existing fish, but it will be a longer process than fishless cycling. If it wasn't for the possible mouth fungus in your girlfriends tank I would say grab some of her gravel, put it in a mesh bag in your tank and that would jumpstart your cycle very quickly. Wait until someone else chimes in though about the fungus because I have little to no experience with fish diseases.....knock on wood.
As for the sick platy, if there isn't a hospital tank available you will need to treat the whole tank. Do not put the sick fish in with yours, your fish may end up sick. Read the information on the label of the medication for any warnings about fish that cannot handle it and dose accordingly. In my experience, pleco's are pretty hardy, so you should be okay. Or, you could try using a round of melafix and pimafix which are both natural products to fight of bacterial and fungul infections and will not harm the tanks biological filter. They are safe to use together, and usually will help with most things as long as treatment is started early.

[Lady Hobbs]

Mouth fungus is pretty evident as the mouth will have a white patch. I take it that her platy is in her tank? You will have to treat for the fungus or the fish will die. Any fungal med will help but she must be prepared to get a mini-cycle after using it. I recently had to treat my sailfin catfish for fungus and I just treated the whole tank as I couldn't catch him. My mini-cycle lasted about 5 days but I have a LOT of fish in that particular tank. If her tank is not overstocked, it may not be evident in hers as it was in mine.

Your plant appears to be some variety of sword plant. I don't know why it was detached from the roots and possible you see the yellow leaves because it's dying? I don't know as it will grow new roots but it won't unless planted. This is a root system plant and not a floating plant so don't be surprised it it should die. I would try planting with some fertilizer spikes to see if that helps or even get a plant plug that you can stick a plant in.

There are great substrates for plants with Flourite rated as the best but there's also a product called Latrite that can be mixed with the gravel for established plants if you plan on adding more. Planted tanks generally need no cycling period but that's for tanks that have been heavily planted.

As long as you are showing ammonia levels, your tank is not yet cycled. First you will see ammonia, then nitrites and finally nitrates with 0 ammonia and nitrites. The fish you have added will start the ammonia cycle for you but you'll need to test water to make sure it doesn't get too high (ammonia and nitrites) or you will loose your fish.

[Lady Hobbs]

Dave posted several questions in the introduction thread that I attempted to move here but his post went south on me!

He wants to know what kind of plant this is and will it grow without roots?

Also, he is still trying to cycle with barbs so you can give your comments there, as well.

His other question was regarding fungus with his girlfriends platy and would it be safe to treat with a pleco in the tank.

Daves plant and tiger Barbs.

(post more questions here Dave if I omitted any so Kimmers and I don't appear to be talking to ourselves.) Sorry guy.

[bigsepe]

Okay, well I'll see about picking up melafix today for her platy. Thanks for the quick replies guys!!

[xoolooxunny]

I would say that plant looks like a Cryptocoryne undulata, but its hard to say. How long have you had the plant in there, bc they readjust to your water by putting out new leaves, and if it is the crypt, then yes it needs root, but very easy to care for.

[Chrona]

You could always try Java Fern. They draw nutrients through their leaves. You can tie the roots down to a rock or something and it will eventually grab hold.

[bigsepe]

I would say that plant looks like a Cryptocoryne undulata, but its hard to say. How long have you had the plant in there, bc they readjust to your water by putting out new leaves, and if it is the crypt, then yes it needs root, but very easy to care for.

Thanks for the name xoolooxunny, I'm sorry I wish I had been more specific. Those two are already rooted in my tank, the one I'm completely lost on is the BIG plant in the back, it has yellow/gold leaves with broad green stripes down the middle when I pulled it from the pot it had no roots it just looked like someone cut off these sprouts from a larger plant. So I put it back in the pot and put the whole thing in my aquarium. New pictures to hopefully help!

Update: My girlfriends platy died last night but I'm still treating the rest of her tank with melafix, and one of my barbs didn't make it through the night, I'm guessing he went into shock... ? I spent an hour floating them in their bag and adding a coffee cup of water every 10 minutes or so.

[Lady Hobbs]

Fish should not be bagged more than an hour. So, if you buy them at the store, drive home and then still bag for another hour, how long were they essentially bagged up? Some of the stores have nice large bags that hold more oxygen and others use much smaller bags and they don't hold enough to contain fish for long at all. (Fish that are shipped can last two to 3 days as extra oxygen is added to the bags.)

Draw some tank water and put it in a bucket and add your bag of fish to this bucket. When you open the bag of fish, pour them into a net and only add the fish to your tank and not the stores water. (No point in adding their ICK or snails or other things to your tank.)

You can also add tank water to a bucket and pour the fish and their water into the bucket for several minutes, net them and put them in your tank.

No quarantees any fish will live that's been stressed but I've seldom had any die right off like that. I feed the fish I already have before adding any new ones, add the new ones and turn off the lights and leave them alone until the next day. They settle down faster without the lights.

[bigsepe]

There bags weren't sealed off for an hour, maybe 30 minutes max, I bought them, drove them home and then started floating them - slowly adding my tank water to their bag for an hour. But after the initial drive home their bags just sat in the tank open just tucked on the outside so that none of their water could get in my tank. I've had 3 total die pretty much like that, 2 died on the 10 minute ride home and one died overnight, like the barb did.
Thanks for your help hobbs.
Edit: I'll start using your second bucket method for any new fish I get.