My Green Severum

[Joey]

Hi all,

I had a 40g with a tin foil, a chalceus, a zig zag eel, a feather fin cat, a green severum, and a clown pleco and common pleco. Shortly after introducing the severum and feather fin, my new severum came down with ich and started diving to the bottom of the tank. I moved her to a 5.5g that I had with a Cory. I also moved the clown pleco and the common pleco to try to save them. The only fish that survived were the three that were moved to the 5.5g and the zigzag that I moved into my feeder fish tank. We decided that because I bought gravel from a landscaping place instead of my LFS, it was not safe from releasing bad minerals/metals into the water.
The 40 has been cycling with 2 goldfish in it for about 2 weeks now and I'm going to wait for probably another 3-4 weeks until I introduce different fish. Here rises my problem. I managed to find a pregnant Molly at my LFS and bought it hoping to get some cheap feeders. I put it in the 5.5 with the severum and she started beating the Molly up. Is this because the tank is too small for the two of them or is the severum probably just mean and if so, can I ever out the severum in with a new tin foil and chalceus etc?

 

[OrangeCones]

I would suspect water quality as your main problem as 40 gallons is not enough water for the stocking you mentioned. As far as the problem you mention with keeping a molly with a green severum: the fish are not compatible and in the confined space of now only 5.5 gallons, the molly is sure to perish living with a cichlid. Not sure what you are feeding the 'cheap feeders' to, but feeding live fish is not a healthy way to feed larger fish and leaves them susceptible to disease and malnutrition.

As for getting another tin foil barb, these fish need huge aquariums (hundreds of gallons) to be kept in captivity, and should be in shoals of 5 or more to remain healthy. Not sure which fish is 'chalceus' as there are a lot of fish in that genus.