Dilemma With Ruby Barbs

[Dazzer87]

Hi everyone, I have a tank at my girlfriends house that is home to a community of fish five of them being ruby barbs. When I picked them up from the shop the guy serving me tried to give me a mixed selection of male and female but I ended up with what looks like 4 males and one female. As you can imagine now and then WW3 breaks out and they go nuts doing tornado spins and chasing each other around the tank. This is concerning me a lot as there is little room for error in an 80L (60cmLx30cmWx60cmD) and I am wondering do I get rid of them? or do I try and sort the grouping out by attempting to get a few more females. I am closing in on what I would acceptably put in the tank as the barbs are quite big I feel I should maybe re-home them and keep the inhabitance on the small side. One of the barbs is showing signs of a damaged tail although nothing serious atm I am getting increasingly worried about long term situation.

The tank is filtered by a canister 250l capacity and my aim was to fill it with a top, middle and bottom swimmers which is working well albeit the only issue being the barbs male / female ratio. The stocking so far is:
5 Ruby barbs
7 Glowlight tetra
1 hillstream loach
5 sterbai cory
1 Gold Ram
6 shrimp
2 Zebra snails.

So far the balance is fine, the fish all get along great and there is no fights or issues between other fish, but the tension when the barbs decide to rival each other throws the peace out the window. Although they don't touch the other fish it just seem like it might be stressing not only the barbs but my poor glow-lights who swim at the same level. The other occupants don't seem to be effected as there is adequate cover with plants and a large piece of wood and are quite happy and oblivious to the goings on above.

If someone could advise the best course of action that would be great, when I got the barbs I didn't realise how erratic their swimming can be. they are peaceful for awhile but these little outbreaks and speeding round the tank is a bit much.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Maybe your Lfs will swap some males for some females?

 

[ParadiseGuerrero]

if you do decide to swap some males for females the easiest way to sex them (just so you don't have to rely on the serving guy) if you look at their dorsal fin, males will be completly black while females have a clear edge. It's useful if the males haven't coloured up.

 

[Akasha72]

I was just about to say the same as ParadiseGuerrero.
My Dad has 5 ruby barbs and the male is beautiful when he's coloured himself up - his black stripes almost disappear he goes such a deep red. He chases the females around a lot. Dad's also got 5 gold barbs - all female and he chases them too so I can imagine what it must be like with 4 males eek!

See if the lfs will swap them for females, if not see if you can re-home 3 of the males and just keep the one - it's what I'd do anyway

Good luck

 

[Dazzer87]

if you do decide to swap some males for females the easiest way to sex them (just so you don't have to rely on the serving guy) if you look at their dorsal fin, males will be completly black while females have a clear edge. It's useful if the males haven't coloured up.

Thanks that's useful information as I was relying on them colouring up for identification which is not always easy as they don't always colour up at the same time.

I was just about to say the same as ParadiseGuerrero.
My Dad has 5 ruby barbs and the male is beautiful when he's coloured himself up - his black stripes almost disappear he goes such a deep red. He chases the females around a lot. Dad's also got 5 gold barbs - all female and he chases them too so I can imagine what it must be like with 4 males eek!

See if the lfs will swap them for females, if not see if you can re-home 3 of the males and just keep the one - it's what I'd do anyway

Good luck

Thanks I think I will try and re-home the 3 males that seem like a good idea. now that I can identify them... "thanks paradiseGuerrero" I may attempt to get some females to replace them as it would be a shame to keep them in small numbers .

 

[Akasha72]

it would be a shame and the one female could well end up harressed to death. If you don't have any pictures in a fish book to hand why not have a look online at the difference between male and female before going to the lfs.

I'm only saying this because my Dad's ruby barbs dart about so much it's difficult to sex them without stood staring at the tank for ages willing them to stay still for a minute lol I thought it might be a good idea to look at still pictures to familarise yourself first that way you can pick out your own knowing they are all female and not rely on the staff member to get it right.

Good luck with it anyway

 

[Dazzer87]

ok so I'm all sorted now, got rid of the female and got 4 more males because the lfs didnt have any females in the school this time round. Time will tell if they get along better in a bigger group all to them self.

Thanks for your help.