Very aggressive ruby barbs

[Thomas90]

Hi all, I’m seeking some advice on my ruby barbs. I currently have 4 in my tank and 2 of them regularly, almost daily, turn deep black and red and seem to be quite aggressive. This has happened more and more in the last 2/3 weeks and I believe it is related to the death of 2 of my bristlenose catfish, one of which died 2 days ago the other was 3 weeks ago. Is there a way to calm them, they are all males so I’m sort of assuming they want to mate and I don’t really fancy the idea of introducing a female just to be used to keep the boys calm, feels inhumane to me. Thank you for reading

 

[1L19]

I had black ruby barbs for two years. I'm not sure how big your tank is but honestly I'd say get more of them. I had 8 of them (all males) in a 30 gallon tank with a swordtail, 3 honey gouramis and 6 false julii corys and they were much too busy with each other to mess around with the other fish. Not saying that's a magic solution but it is based on one person's experience.

Generally, with sex mixing, I believe it's normally best to have more females than males so the females aren't harassed constantly by the males. Once again that's a very general comment which is probably accurate in the case of barbs.

Good luck!

 

[Colin_T]

The ruby barbs turning black are males and they do this when the weather warms up and conditions are good. Males will often display to each other and chase each other around the tank. It is normal behaviour and they don't usually damage each other or anyone else.

 

[Byron]

"Aggression" in the eyes of the aquarist is often a very different thing from how the fish see it playing out. Numbers of the species when we are dealing with a shoaling species like all barbs are is extremely important to the fish. Too few of them does have serious consequences, I had a group of 9-10 Black Ruby Barbs for several years, and over the time a few fry managed to hatch and survive. The males are easy to tell from females by their black and deep ruby red colouring; females tend to look much like Tiger Barbs--but do not mix these two species.

I don't have the tank size, or the other tankmates, but provided this is at minimum a 36-inch/90 cm length tank, a group of 10-12 of the rubies would be good. If you do this, try to get a rough balance of male/female. Even in store tanks, unless the conditions really are terrible, the males will show some minor colouration over females.

There is now scientific evidence that groups of less than 10 with any of these shoaling species does increase aggression and carries other issues detrimental to the fish.