Help Me Find A Barb :)

[kylealastairlove]

hey all! 
not been on here in a looooong long time, but im glad to be back

im gonna be honest i kinda lost interest a little and since have just kept a low maintenance tank, heavily overgrown with weeping moss and lots of platys. but! now i am more than ever wanting to throw myself back into this lovely hobby that i have rediscovered love for

now i have been reading through all my practicalfishkeeping mags and i seen a chekered barb biotope in there and it has really inspired me to do my own biotope, i think after a lot of pondering which fish i would like i want some kind of barb

question 1) does anybody know if butterfly barbs are very adaptable, i know they are a soft/acidic water fish but theyre so beautiful and i want!! only my tank has a ph of 7.6 and is hard water, if anybody knows if they are able to adapt well to these conditions id love to give them a go, if not i will find something more suiting 

question 2) could you all just throw some suggestions my way please? as i said my tank water sits at 7.6 ph and is slightly hard water so please go ahead and suggest some fish that would be suiting for these conditions (i want to keep fish that will be happy in these conditions rather than get something pretty and it not be very happy lol) its a shame though because a lot of the fish that i fancy are soft water fish, oh well! also (im not really interested in livebearers much so any recommendations other than that would be great
 
thank you all 
 

 

[kylealastairlove]

i really like bleeding heart tetra too after seeing the beautys they can become given the right environment and time to mature! but dont know if they'd be suitable in my aquarium hmmms

 

[Byron]

On the question of the butterfly barb, which I am taking to be the species Barbus hulstaerti, this fish will almost certainly be wild-caught (unless you obtain fry from a local aquarist) so attention must be paid to the water parameters.  Soft to very soft water is important, and the pH will naturally be on the acidic side with this.  This species is small, and unlike most if not all of the more common Asian-origin barbs, very shy and quiet.  You can read more here:
http/www.seriouslyfish.com/species/barbus-hulstaerti/
 
The Bleeding Heart is a much larger fish, and needs tank space.  But much more adaptable as these are commercially raised fish, though extremes should be avoided.  I don't know just how "hard" your water is, but the GH is more important than pH generally speaking.  This is still a soft water fish, but more adaptable, but extremes should be avoided for the better health of the fish.
 
It will be easier for us to suggest suitable fish when we know the GH, and the tank size.
 
Byron.

 

[Goggy]

butterfly barbs is the hardest barb to ever maintain in a house aquarium, they are not the most pH adaptable.
Dont choose big barbs like bala sharks and tinfoil barbs
 
a good replacement colorwise, for the butterfly barb is the melon barb.

 

[kylealastairlove]

well thanks for clearing that up for me, i didnt think they would be wild caught tbh but hey ho! i'll give that a miss then cus i know they wouldnt fair too well and as for melon barb i dont actually think ive seen them before but i will take a looky! 

i can give you the dimensions of the tank which are 61 x 41 x 58 120 litre i only have api master test kit atm which doesnt have a GH test so i really must get my hands on one all i know is that it is definitely hard water from past tests, but that was a little while ago

i looked into some barb species, (pentazona, odessa) but again i guess most barb species require soft/acidic water as do most of the fish i like from S.E asia
if all else fails i would love to take on a F8 puffer and couple of bumblebee goby, although ideally i want to do a planted freshwater setup  

its proving difficult to find something that a) i really do want and b) that would be happy to live in my tank ha 

 

[Byron]

There are some very significant water parameter differences between the fish mentioned in your last post (#5).  GH really is important as this is the amount of dissolved minerals in the water, and this impacts fish internally.  Don't fuss over a GH test kit as once you know the GH you may never need to test it again.  Your water supply authority should have this data, probably on their website, or they can (should) tell you if asked.  GH is general hardness, and KH is carbonate hardness sometimes called Alkalinity.  Both are worth knowing before deciding on fish.  I can explain further when we have the numbers.
 
On your tank size, 120 litres is basically 30 gallons, and from the dimensions (assuming these are in centimetres) you have a high rather than long tank.  This is important because some fish are active swimmers and need length more than height or volume, while others are sedate and do well in taller or cube-like tanks.  Barbs generally are active, so not a good choice.  Rasbora by contrast are sedate fish, generally speaking; many (but not all) tetra are as well.  Puffers and bumblebee goby are also sedate so good from that aspect.  Just some general observations until we get the GH sorted out.
 
Byron.

 

[kylealastairlove]

sorry for loads of posts but i just found a dip strip test (i know they arent the most accurate) in the back of my fish tank cabinet
GH was measured in mg/l dont know if thats normal or not but it measured at 150-200 mg/l (again wasnt the most accurate reading it was hard to tell) 
i dont know whether i trust the dip strip test because it said my Ph was <6.4 yet when i tested with my api kit yesterday it read 7.6 which is what it has been every single time i tested 

and yep my tank is more tall rather than long 

and thats good because i love schooling fish i used to have a school of 11 rasbora heteromorpha and they seemed to fair very well and when they matured more they began to get a nice purpley kinda sheen to them, looked fantastic! 

 

[Byron]

The mg/l scale is basically the same as ppm (parts per million), so that means 150-200 ppm (recognizing the possible inaccuracy of the test strips).  This equates to between 8 and 11 dGH.  Moderately hard, which is not bad at all; aside from wild caught soft water fish, you shouldn't have issues with most.
 
I generally prefer not suggesting fish, as I feel your aquarium should reflect your interests rather than mine, and you have as I mentioned previously mentioned very different fish types, so I'll wait for you to narrow things down a bit and I can offer suggestions on species if I see issues.  For instance, you wouldn't want to mix rasbora in with puffers.
 
Byron.

 

[kylealastairlove]

well i like rasbora's and i have just came across emerald eye/eyespot rasbora, they definitely take my interest i can imagine they would look great in a black water tank with plenty of leaf litter and some nice pieces of wood to create shade, and from what i have read they are fairly adaptable and not too hard to care for which is good

theres a lot of things i want to do but i only have one tank lol! but i have always liked the idea of setting up a biotope for one or 2 specific species so i could possibly go with that idea 
do you think emerald eye rasbora and sparkling gourami would make for a good S.E asia set up ? 

 

[Byron]

well i like rasbora's and i have just came across emerald eye/eyespot rasbora, they definitely take my interest

i can imagine they would look great in a black water tank with plenty of leaf litter and some nice pieces of wood to create shade, and from what i have read they are fairly adaptable and not too hard to care for which is good

theres a lot of things i want to do but i only have one tank lol! but i have always liked the idea of setting up a biotope for one or 2 specific species so i could possibly go with that idea 
do you think emerald eye rasbora and sparkling gourami would make for a good S.E asia set up ? 

 
On your last question, yes.  In fact, I have these fish together in my 33g (3 foot length) but they do not swim much so in a taller tank they are ideal.  My 33g is basically SE Asian, with lots (and I mean lots) of chunks of wood (some standing to the surface), sand, leaf litter, Java Fern on some of the wood, and fairly thick floating plants.  I have six pygmy sparkling gourami, five Eyespot Rasbora, nine Copper Rasbora (Trigonostigma hengeli, my personal favourite of the three very similar "harlequin" species), three Boraras maculatus (the last of a larger group, will get more when I next see them, rather rare here), and five dwarf loaches and four banded dwarf loaches.  I went this route as an experiment with dim lighting (it is a single T8 tube with a Life-Glo 6500K) plus floating plants making it even dimmer, hence no major lower plants.  It is a very different effect but I like it.  Photo attached to illustrate.  The Copper and Eyespot rasbora are always together in a group.

 

[kylealastairlove]

thats awesome ive kept copper rasboras in the past, in fact i think they were the first schooling fish i purchased! i had a decent size bunch of them in a 64 litre, and i have to say they were my fave out of the 3 similar species too! 

love the tank too! looks fantastic!
i always liked java fern but whenever i had it it just seemed to very slowly deteriorate, tried out narrow leaf java too that was pretty cool! i like the look of bororas maculatus too !  i think im gonna have to make a list of all the stuff im gonna need to re scape my tank, taking my time so i can get everything right and how i want it though cus ive rushed things before and i find it works better to have a plan ready! 

 

[Byron]

thats awesome ive kept copper rasboras in the past, in fact i think they were the first schooling fish i purchased! i had a decent size bunch of them in a 64 litre, and i have to say they were my fave out of the 3 similar species too! 

love the tank too! looks fantastic!
i always liked java fern but whenever i had it it just seemed to very slowly deteriorate, tried out narrow leaf java too that was pretty cool! i like the look of bororas maculatus too

!  i think im gonna have to make a list of all the stuff im gonna need to re scape my tank, taking my time so i can get everything right and how i want it though cus ive rushed things before and i find it works better to have a plan ready! 

 
Thank you.  Yes, plan it out.  Wood is the major material you want here.  And I would certainly go with sand for the substrate; I use common play sand as it is not rough (important for substrate fish) and looks natural.
 
Java Fern is low-light, and in bright light can develop terrible brush algae or nutrient issues.  Works well under a cover of floating plants.  Nutrient needs are low too, as with low-light plants generally, and a good complete liquid fertilizer once a week after the water change is usually sufficient.
 
Byron.

 

[kylealastairlove]

been thinking about what to do, i have lots of wood, just none that i want to use, i want a nice large piece! sooner i get that sooner i can design my tank around it i also picked up some play sand today it was so cheap and came in a very large bag it was impossible to not buy it ha ha 

 

[Byron]

been thinking about what to do, i have lots of wood, just none that i want to use, i want a nice large piece! sooner i get that sooner i can design my tank around it

i also picked up some play sand today it was so cheap and came in a very large bag it was impossible to not buy it ha ha 

 On the wood, visually a single large piece will make the tank look smaller, compared to several pieces that may be smaller though still largish like those in my photo.

 

[kylealastairlove]

got a couple of pics of the little wood collection i have! 





have since gotten a couple more small chunky pieces to help fill out some space rather than just having the loooong pieces 
and also heres a pic of a previous set up of mine with some sumatra wood complete with rasbora heteromorpha and there is also a bunch of hara jerdoni in there they were cool little things, looking back at this kinda miss it might try doing something similar to this