In what order should I quarantine my next fish?

[Troy328]

Hello, everyone!

 

I am currently in the process of getting new fish for my 55 gallon tank. The current stocking plans are:

• 9 x Cherry Barbs, all female
• 8 x Platies, 2 males and 6 females
• 2 x Honey Gouramis, 1 male and 1 female

 

Currently, I have the cherry barbs already, but I don't have the honey gouramis or the platys yet. I only have a 10 gallon tank at my disposal for quarantine, at least for now. I am trying to figure out the best order for me to introduce the new fish. (when I introduced the cherry barbs, I did a group of 4 and then a group of 5 to prevent the quarantine from being overcrowded)

 

If I do the platys first, I know I probably won't be able to get all 8 in at the same time, because I'm only working with 10 gallons. So I could split the group in half (Get two groups that consist of 1 male and 3 females each) but then my concern is a lot of pregnancy in quarantine which could complicate things and crowd the tank, not to mention it might stress the females out to always be picked on by the males. I also considered adding the six females in the first batch, and then the two males in the second batch, so that the females won't get harassed in quarantine, but would two male platys do well enough in a quarantine by themselves, or would they pick on each other too much?

 

If I do the Honey gouramis first, I want to make sure that a male and female will do ok together in a 10 gallon quarantine tank, as I have heard lots of conflicting info on that one. If I'm working with only a 10 gallon, would I need to quarantine them separately as well? Would I need like a 20 gallon in order to quarantine the pair at the same time? Regardless, I'm thinking of adding them before I add the platies, because they can probably get to some of the platy fry to help keep the population in check. if I add the platies first, they might explode in population a little too quickly, since the cherry barbs are currently too small to really eat the fry. Then again, I don't know how big of a deal it would be to get swarmed by platies. After all, that's sort of the charm of livebearers, right?

 

any input or advice would be appreciated, thank you :]

[AllFishNoBrakes]

When I was playing with Platy’s I quarantined entire groups of 8-10 in a 10 gallon tank without issue. Feed lightly, test often and you should be fine. 
 

The one piece of advice I have is that, in the main/display tank, populations can boom quickly! I went from my group of 8 adult Platy’s to being overrun with fry/juveniles quickly in a 29. But I also feed lots of frozen self-hatched Baby Brine Shrimp. 
 

Most of the Platy’s have been moved on and the adults are passing due to age, and I’ve kept the crazy color combos I’ve gotten from breeding that I enjoy keeping. To keep from getting overrun again, I grow out my Angels with the Platy group in a 55 and the Angels keep things in check. 
 

Hope this helps and best of luck getting through quarantine and setting up your tank!

[Guppysnail]

Stocking order is always least aggressive to most aggressive. You do not want the most aggressive claiming spaces they get added after everyone else is in and cozy. 
Im uncertain of the aggression level of cherry barbs. So platy (I wouldn’t bay an eye at the entire group in a 10. Very easy to do extra water changes if needed). The honey I just got are super peaceful so make the call based on how aggressive the barbs are. 
Sorry I miss read barbs are in. So platy then gourami. 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Troy328]

On 12/8/2022 at 12:58 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

When I was playing with Platy’s I quarantined entire groups of 8-10 in a 10 gallon tank without issue. Feed lightly, test often and you should be fine. 
 

The one piece of advice I have is that, in the main/display tank, populations can boom quickly! I went from my group of 8 adult Platy’s to being overrun with fry/juveniles quickly in a 29. But I also feed lots of frozen self-hatched Baby Brine Shrimp. 
 

Most of the Platy’s have been moved on and the adults are passing due to age, and I’ve kept the crazy color combos I’ve gotten from breeding that I enjoy keeping. To keep from getting overrun again, I grow out my Angels with the Platy group in a 55 and the Angels keep things in check. 
 

Hope this helps and best of luck getting through quarantine and setting up your tank!

 

On 12/8/2022 at 1:22 PM, Guppysnail said:

Stocking order is always least aggressive to most aggressive. You do not want the most aggressive claiming spaces they get added after everyone else is in and cozy. 
Im uncertain of the aggression level of cherry barbs. So platy (I wouldn’t bay an eye at the entire group in a 10. Very easy to do extra water changes if needed). The honey I just got are super peaceful so make the call based on how aggressive the barbs are. 
Sorry I miss read barbs are in. So platy then gourami. 

Thank you both so much! I appreciate the input, this makes me feel reassured about getting platies first!