My Green Tiger Barbs , HELP!!!!

[LisaNShelby]

I have 2 green tiger barbs, well one now, One we found dead, he was pushed up under something in our tank, his fins were gone. Now our second one has barely any fins left. We have 1 albino Tiger and 7 tiger barbs. I don't see anything else wrong with any of the rest of them. Is there something I should be worried about? I don't see anyone fighting and shredding anyone's fins, I'm not sure what to do here. The one green I have left seems to be having trouble swimming (i guess i sould too if I had no fins , I'm not sure what to do here.

 

[tstenback]

were the two green barbs recent additions to the tank? If so they may have had a problem before you got them, or they could have been involved in the many domination pecking order scraps that happen with schooling fish. What are your water parameters?

 

[LisaNShelby]

The green barbs have been there for at least 4 months, they are not new additions. OUr water parameters are a little out of whack, we were a bit late on a water change. But everyone else seems to be fine. And they have been fine themselves so I'm just really confused and concerned. Thankyou for your response, any ideas?

 

[tstenback]

normally fin rot, like it sounds these guys have/had is due to water conditins and can be rectified by a few water changes and then regular weekly water changes. You may need to treat the sick barb for fin rot. If you can isolate him for the treatment. If he starts to come around with the water changes then perhaps just some melafix wll help him heal.

 

[LisaNShelby]

I'm wondering if I can do anything for him? I don't have a hospital tank, his fins are almost gone, what should I do? he's getting around ok it seems, will they grow back?

 

[adcs]

LisaNShelby

With regards to your Tiger Barb growing his fins back - my fish's fins grow back quite quickly (with a couple of weeks), but it helps if his friends aren't constantly chewing them off, so unless you separate him, he might not get better. I use a breeding net that anchors on to the side of the tank which seems to work really well.

My experience with Tiger Barbs (including both standard and green TBs) and Barbs in general is that occasionally they target one fish for no apparent reason. I've seen this 4 times so far; once with a female green tiger barb, twice with one male rosy barb (every now and then they bite off his tail and I have to remove him) and they also bit a mountain minnows tail clean off. All for no particular reason - fish had been in there for months, they didn’t look sick, no changes in water chemistry etc. And once I'd solved one problem, they'd just pick on something else.

I have two theories:

A ) I only had 6 of Tiger Barbs and this might not have been enough for them to shoal properly, resulting in aggressive behaviour.

B ) Probably most likely cause – fish target and pick on their sick / weak tank mates.

I noticed that there was one particular bully responsible who I've now removed. I can't say whether this worked as not long after I took all the tiger barbs out (didn't feel there were sufficient numbers for them to be happy and I couldn't add any more fish to my tank), but I've since had no problems with the rest of the fish (no fin nipping etc amongst the other species of Barbs).

Hope this helps.