Each fish is between 12-14cm [head to tail], 8 Orandas and 8 butterflies. Two I'm going to give away. Tell me what you think of this plan for the first month:

Cycled tank for five fish (55gallons):
1- 50% water change every other day during 1st week (no food)
2- 50% water change every three days during 2nd week (introduce food)
3- 90% weekly water change routine starting from 3rd week
4- 0.5% Salinity during first two weeks

Half-filled Pool for the other 9 fish (180 gallons):
1- 100% water change every other day during first week (no food)
2- 100% water change every three days during 2nd week (introduce food)
3- 100% weekly water change routine starting from 3rd week
4- 0.5% Salinity during first two weeks
5- Two 10 gallon basins used for fish during water change [4-5 fish in each].

I'm afraid to do 100% water changes in the 55gallon cycled tank as I do not want to disturb the bacteria, the small fish in there I'll move to another smaller tank. Let me know if this plan is better as I tried to take a bit from everyone's advice here. Thanks.

don't want to make your plans more complicated, but the "cycled" tank will become uncycled should you discover there are parasites in those fish. Its one of the reasons most of us don't do QT in cycled tanks. So no point worrying about preserving the bateria.

Qn: your orandas and dragoneyes should be coming in seperate packs. are they? If so, it would help if you don't mix them during QT. Its a silly bet but better then nothing.

Alright, then that means just the pool and saving the cycled tank for after quarentine - I do not want to stress the fish through another cycle later if they do end up having parasites...

Then I could just try and see if I can get more basins during water change I guess for 14 fish. As for separating the orandas and dragoneyes, they're coming in the same box and will be quarentined together at the farm I think since they quarentine fish there before shipping them. Do I still need to separate them? LOL

then i guess you can save the effort to seperate them ;) you can use any basins actually.. as long as they don't leak! just have to be sure they are free of detergents .

Thanks Mountain, I am still going to search around and check if there are smaller good pools available to separate them just in case as I'm also worried over letting them sit for long in basins during water change.

P.S. Cool avatar!

how?

How's what? LOL Your avatar? It's funny and unique, are you into flies? hehe

By the way, I was able to get three 100-150L white plastic tubs today, I think I'll be using those instead of the pool as they will be easier to maintain water changes. Will post pics of the tubs soon just to brag since I've been looking for those for like a year now.

My permission papers [for airport] are still not ready which is delaying the fish getting here, but that is good as I am having enough time to prepare everything.

actually 16 4inch fish for an hr or so in a 100L basin is ok, oxygen is your main concern, and strong aeration should do the trick.

I myself hold up to 30 fishes in a 100L basin for 1/2hr without aeration during water change. But thats the max without aeration as they'll start to flip upside down

don't worry so much and stress yourself
you're on the right track ;)

haha actually I was thinking of permanently keeping 4/3 in each tub instead of the pool, wouldn't that be better as they'd be separated and also water change will be much quicker?

not a bad idea also. If problem arise, it can be easily isolated into just 3-4 in each tub, rather than all of them ;)

Finally the fish arrived, it was hell...Originally the fish were sent out of the farm to arrive here in the UAE at 1am. At the airport they had to move the box to another plane which was supposed to land at 2:30am, but that plane also got delayed and arrived in the UAE at 5am!!! It took me an hour to get them out of customs and then two hours drive back home and I got them here at 8am.

That means the fish were boxed for 7 extra hours because of delays, two bags were almost out of oxygen and unfortunately when I added them to the tubs [after letting the temperature balance for 30 mins then 20 mins introducing water slowly, all in all it was 50-55 mins until they were added to the tubs] two fish were already not in good health, one developed swimbladder problem and the other gasping for air, another two are also so/so. There is 0.3% salt in the water and I didn't want to do anythig else as what they have could be just stress and maybe tomorrow they'll get better.

Fortunately, all the others adjusted perfectly and running around like crazy, two even were chasing each other already!

I took lots of pictures, no side view shots though but soon once they're relaxed and doing well I will take some. The majority are far from being show quality but they're not ordinary either and together as a batch they look simply stunning!

I think making 100% water change tomorrow will be too much stress, I will do 50% tomorrow instead - no food of course for the whole week.

Thanks a lot guys and later tonight I'll post the pics...

hey hamad.
glad to hear those fishes travelled half way round the world and made it to you.

your thoughts on what to do are on track. jus remember... if it was you doing all that travelling ... how would you feel.

do a 50-70% water change tomorrow. be quick so as not to stress the fish more.
as for food... after the second day... i like to jus drop very little bit in, once a day.

otherwise, jus enjoy your babies. post those pics soon ok.

and Congrats to you again!

Thank you so much aronkhj, you're right they were very stressed because all of them now are running around so actively and recovered except for the one floating - the rest regained their energy it seems and I am very happy that they adjusted nicely!

An hour ago I bought two more tubs as well, one is 100 litre and the other about 60. Currently there is 5 to 6 fish in each of the three 150 tubs, I want to narrow it down to 4 to give them more space. I also found Melafix today which I'm going to dose with during the next water change.

Anyway as promised here's the pictures, they don't show the fish very well and I haven't taken good pictures of them but I will soon


^^ tubs ready and waiting for the fish


^^ once I got home and opened the box...


^^ left the bags float for 30 minutes...


^^ introduction of tub water to the bags


^^ 20 minutes later, here's the first fish set free in the tub...


^^ two beloved butterflies, yeah one has unbalanced eyes LOL


^^ checking out the new place...


^^ the Orandas tub, 4 red and 2 red caps


^^ this tub has red/white and black butterflies, + 2 beautiful calico orandas

That's all there is, and I have to say thanks to everyone that replied to this thread because I truly learned a lot from the advises offered here. Will keep this thread updated throughout the quarentine period and hopefully it will go smoothly.

Hamad, I have seen several fish of Tung Hoi in the internet, and I know somebody who also got fish from them. and they were all adorable. So nice fish - In Europe I would dream of such lovely fish.
You are lucky.

Hamad, your fishes meant for TV