Barbs, Guppies, Mollies And Corydoras Trilineatus

[corykat]

Hi, newbie here. Did my research, found out that tiger barbs are fin nippers when kept in groups of less than 5 or 6. I have snails in my tank, as well as guppies (one adult and a bunch of 2 month old fry), mollies (5 of which are about 4 1/2 months old, the rest are fry under a month old), and 4 three-line corydoras.

The tiger barbs have killed/eaten some of the molly fry, but I understand that my other adult fish might have been responsible as well. What I'm concerned about is whether or not the tiger barbs will bother the other adult fish too...

It all started went to a pet store to ask a specialist how to get rid of the snails multiplying in my tank and he sold me three young tiger barbs saying they would do the trick. I was worried about my other fish getting harassed, so I went for 6 instead. I notice that there is one tiger barb in the shoal who is more agressive than the others and he goes after my other fish. The rest of the barbs usually just chase each other and ignore the other fish. Should I remove the tiger barb causing trouble and just replace him? I have a friend who already has a shoal of tiger barbs and I can give him to her instead. I'm just wondering if that'll do any good. Will another barb in the shoal take his place? I understand that since my barbs are shoaling fish, there's usually a pecking order, and therefore a leader of the pack. I'd appreciate any advice...

Corykat

 

[Stacy84]

Hi, newbie here. Did my research, found out that tiger barbs are fin nippers when kept in groups of less than 5 or 6. I have snails in my tank, as well as guppies (one adult and a bunch of 2 month old fry), mollies (5 of which are about 4 1/2 months old, the rest are fry under a month old), and 4 three-line corydoras.

The tiger barbs have killed/eaten some of the molly fry, but I understand that my other adult fish might have been responsible as well. What I'm concerned about is whether or not the tiger barbs will bother the other adult fish too...

It all started went to a pet store to ask a specialist how to get rid of the snails multiplying in my tank and he sold me three young tiger barbs saying they would do the trick. I was worried about my other fish getting harassed, so I went for 6 instead. I notice that there is one tiger barb in the shoal who is more agressive than the others and he goes after my other fish. The rest of the barbs usually just chase each other and ignore the other fish. Should I remove the tiger barb causing trouble and just replace him? I have a friend who already has a shoal of tiger barbs and I can give him to her instead. I'm just wondering if that'll do any good. Will another barb in the shoal take his place? I understand that since my barbs are shoaling fish, there's usually a pecking order, and therefore a leader of the pack. I'd appreciate any advice...

Corykat

I currently have five tiger barbs in my tank and they are aggressive fin nippers. However i do notice that in higher numbers they tend to focus on each other more and they are pretty when swimming in shoals. However, my barbs are in a tank with signifcantly bigger fish than them and more aggressive fish in most cases so i think that plays a big part. (they've learned that having a four inch gourami mad at you is a bad idea) i would be worried about your mollys for sure as they are not a very aggressive fish. As for the pecking order, I always have one barb who is "the master" no matter if i remove one or not. So chances are if you remove the one "trouble maker" another one will step up and take his place. Is the "master" bigger than all the other tiger barbs? If so it could be he doesn't have to spend as much time asserting his dominance and that allows him to spend his time asserting control over the rest of the tank.
As for your snails, barbs will not really help with that as barbs do not have beaks to crack the shells of the snails. I haven't seen barbs eat snails and trust me we all get really bad outbreaks...
Another thing about your fry....they are goners unless you set up a seperate tank to keep them seperated from the happy barbs and mollys that will eat them. Fry are okay to reintroduce in the main tank when they are about an inch big.