champjb10

I'm new to having a fish tank and I've read that you need to feed your fish twice a day, and I do, but they don't appear to be eating the food and it has me concerned. I have a cherry barb and a white cloud minnow. Any suggestions and feedback would be great. Thanks!!

COBettaCouple

Welcome to Fishlore. It may be internal parasites. What are your tank parameters?

Lucy

Hi welcome to Fish Lore.

At 80f, your tank is too warm for your minnow. They prefer cooler temps than your cherry barb.

Is the tank cycled?
What are your reading for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

If it's not cycled, they could be feeling the effects of ammonia. What's your water change routine?

Good luck.

peacemaker92

WELCOME TO FISHLORE!!

I'd go with Lucy's question. Is your tank fully cycled? It needs to be cycled first before you put fish in! Search Fishlore about the nitrogen cycle before you continue. Good luck!

champjb10

Thanks guys! Any suggestions on how i can cool off my tank? My apartment is at about 77-80 F so I guess just leaving my light off is the best thing. Any other suggestions would be great.

My tank is not fully cycled, I read and spoke to people who said that I need to have fish in it to cycle it! Oh my! You just can never trust the internet!

I change my water weekly at about 10% rate. I leave the water out for a number of hours (overnight) and use a tap water conditioner that I bought.

Thanks for the help!!!

jdhef

Welome to FishLore!

You should be doing 50% daily water changes until your tank cycles. If you use a water conitioner called Prime, it will lock up the ammonia and nitrites so they will not be toxic to your fish for 24 hours. At which point you'd be doing another 50% waterchange with Prime.

There is really no reason to leave you water sit out overnight. Just get the water at the right temperature comming out of the faucet, add your Prime and pour it in your tank.

Barbrella

Aside from the cycling issue, cherry barbs and White clouds are both schooling fish.

Cherry barbs in particular will NOT behave normally when kept without the company of their own kind.

5 gals is too small for a school of either fish, so you need to either upgrade to at least 10 gallons and get two more barbs or 4 or 5 more White clouds, or take them back to the petstore and get something suitable for such a small tank, like a betta.

Blub

That is likely the reason they are not eating.