Question Bout My Barbs

HannahBear77 · Jan 8, 2012

so i have 2 tiger barbs in my 30g tank which i know that you should have 3 or more im working on my tank issues one step at a time so now that every one is back to normal health their next on my list

all my fish were doing great when i put them in the 30g my black fin tetras started schooling my danios and white clouds started schooling together my glow light tetras and neon tetras have been hanging out, my serpaes do their on thing and dont bother any one and mainly hang out at the back of the tank so every thing and every one is peaceful in my tank

except for my tiger barbs they were doing good sharing the front of the tank with my blank fins and they would school together every once n awhile then go off and do their on thing together well they would be swimming around then all of a sudden the one will snap and start chasing the other nipping her fins and then they would sit there and get into a fight and they would do that for 10 minutes then be perfect after that ive been watching it for a 2 week and it wont stop and its becoming more frequent now

they truly do leave the other fish alone they dont push them to the corners of the tank or even chase away the black fins out of their area they share, the one barb that is taking all the blows is really friendly towards the others and will leave all the other fish alone but ik with out any others around she will become aggressive

(sorry for the long post)

~ so should i put another tiger barb in with them?
~ remove the one that keeps instigating the fights?
~ or just get rid of the both of them?

smokeyjo · Jan 9, 2012

It depends wheter u want more or not tiger barbs find safety in numbers and will calm down in a bigger group my personal opinion is you should have at least 6 of them

KISSfn · Jan 9, 2012

+1 smokeyjo!

soybean · Jan 9, 2012

Tigers do better in large numbers, more like 10+, so the aggression is more evenly dispersed. The bare minimum would be 6, not 3, and adding more should reduce one picking on the other. There may be some scuffles when you add more while they establish a pecking order.

HannahBear77 · Jan 9, 2012

Alright thanks

HannahBear77 · Jan 9, 2012

I think what I'll do is take them back to my Lfs where I got them and see if I could trade for any other fish

Steve H. · Jan 9, 2012

Hi!
I was in a similar situation. I started with only 3 tiger barbs, and 1 decided he was boss and constantly chased the other 2.
I upped the count to 7. The original bully is still the boss, however now that there are more in the group he usually does not know which way to go first...kind of comical because he never catches any of the others and just chases. Every now and then another rises to be the bully of the day. It seems to be a never ending game of "Tag" in there.
I was worried about this at first, but now just chalk it up to the nature of this species and that's what Tiger Barbs do.
As long as your Barbs are not bothering any of your other fish, and keeping the chasing to each other I say get them some more playmates!

And do it before they get bored with each other, and start going after their tank mates.