What Goes With Tiger Barbs?

[Iron Man]

What do you guys/gals keep with tiger barbs without nipping going on?

I have a 55 gallon with rocks and plastic and live plants I was thinking of putting some schooling fish in. I really love tiger barbs. They are colorful, active, and they school together no matter how comfortable they feel in the aquarium.

Do they do well with cory cats and ghost shrimp?

 

[-*-MicHAeL-*-]

What do you guys/gals keep with tiger barbs without nipping going on?

I have a 55 gallon with rocks and plastic and live plants I was thinking of putting some schooling fish in. I really love tiger barbs. They are colorful, active, and they school together no matter how comfortable they feel in the aquarium.

Do they do well with cory cats and ghost shrimp?

To prevent tiger barbs nipping other fish and each other keep them in gropus of 7 or 8 at least and this hsould help tackle fin nipping but this is no gurantee. it also depends on the type of fish you wish to keep them with - ie they are likely to nips the fins of fish with long flowing fins such as fancy guppies and bettas

corys cats will do fine with tiger barbs as they do not share the same water level and will hardly ever come into contact with each other

im afraid i know nothing about shrimp so someone will help you out on that!!!

 

[bobwumba]

yes tiger barbs are a bit nippy but a 55 gallon is plenty of room to have a school of them to minimize the nipping. Like -*-MicHAeL-*- said angels fish, gouramis and any other fish that is slow or has long fins is probably out of the question. Corys would be fine if they were in a school and were privided hiding places. Ghost shrimp i find to be very fragile. If you like shrimp maybe bamboo shrimp might be a better choice since they are hardier and larger. They would be able to withstand tiger barbs since my friend was able to keep a few in his 55 gallon filled with african cichlids.

you might be a rainbowfish fan since they are colorful, active, school and arent nippy at all.

good luck

 

[Iron Man]

Thanks for the help Michael and bobwunda.

Yea I've thought about rainbows too...what great fish they are. I have never researched bamboo shrimp but maybe I'll do that. They must be some really tough little boogers to be kept in with african cichlids.

 

[northpaul]

danios go well with mine and the rtbs keeps the little devils in order

 

[daudy_dojo]

you know, there really is no way to stop nipping it all depends on the fish... and yea i agreee with the danios they are awsome lil buggers

 

[Iron Man]

Well I've had danios. No offence but they kinda get on my nerves. They're not so much "active" as they are HYPER. Its not something I really enjoy watching in the tank.

I had some tiger barbs off and on while growing up in attempted community tanks (back when I didn't know a whole lot), but they would just nip none stop....it was a nightmare for the other fish. But then I only kept 2 or 3 at a time in small tanks.

The last time I had them was in the 55 gallon I have now, and I kept them with african cichlids. The whole time they were in that tank....they never dared even once to nip or even think about doing that to an mbuna.....esp. the red zebras. I think they were excited just to be alive in there as it was. I never thought I'd see the day when tiger barbs would be scared of something and everything behave as a community.

But while I had them in there....man did I get really hooked (if I never was before). There was a school of 13 of them in there and they stuck close together 24/7. They rivaled the cichlids for constant attention....very interesting and nice looking little fish.

I'm going to shoot for the following since doing some reading;

8 Dwarf Neon Blue Rainbow Fish

8 Tiger Barbs

8 Cherry Barbs

8 Gold Barbs

8 Cory Cats (whatever smaller versions I wind up with)

Thanks again Bobwunda for that advice I am really glad you mentioned rainbows.

 

[ccg]

I have 9 tiger barbs myself, and I have never really had a problem with nipping (and I started with two).

Currently I have 3 bronze corys, 6 cherry barbs, 1 red tailed black shark and 6 gold barbs, everyone gets along great.

Good luck.

 

[ccg]

I have just noticed that you plan on keeping 8 cherry barbs. You are going to get a lot of people telling you to keep a trio of them, and no more or elseig they will fight. I have never kept females, but I currently have 6 males, all getting along great. They never fight or nip each other. So I would go for it and see how you make out, I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[Iron Man]

Well I traded the livebearers in today and got 8 nice looking tiger barbs. I was also told that if I'm keeping tiger barbs I needed to go with rosy barbs instead. They are beautiful and they school. So I said ok and got 8 of them too.

The tiger barbs behave...well...like tiger barbs. But the rosy barbs are kinda similar which is now kinda distracting to the whole thing. They constantly get mixed in with the school of tigers and try to school with them.....then the tigers see the rosies and try to school with them.

Its kinda chaotic which is not what I was going for, but what do you expect when these fish behave so similarly...they identify with each other somewhat.

I think I'm going to take the rosy barbs back out and get some neon blue dwarf rainbows and some cory cats....and call it a full tank. 16 fish really fill the tank up more than I thought they would anyway....and the cories will just put the crowning touch on it all.

 

[Grouchy]

I have over 20 tiger barbs in a 40 gallon tank; most of them grew from fry and swim with their parents. One thing I have noticed about tiger barbs: there is no way to completely eliminate fin-nipping. Younger barbs tend to nip fins more than matured adults. There is always the chance of getting a "rogue" barb that is on the lower end of their social order who will fin-nip anything they can get away with nipping.

Before I moved my tiger barbs to the 40 gallon tank they shared space with a pleco and two albino corydoras. The corydoras showed signs of fin-nipping so I put as much plant cover in that tank. (btw, the corys are fine and healed up pretty quickly).

I've seen the following fish suggested as tank mates.

• zebra danios
• clown loaches (different water requirements, indicator fish)
• rainbow shark (only one)
• red-tailed shark (only one)
• iridescent(sp?) shark
• someone here has black widow tetras with tiger barbs and one book says this should be okay as well
• and, of course, green barbs and albino tiger barbs.

Remember, when introducing fish do so with small groups at a time to give biological filtration time to adapt.

By nature if tiger barbs are given space they will look chaotic as they chase each other all over the place, spar, and generally look like little imps.

If you are looking for a less chaotic environment, make sure your water quality is good and try a small group of clown loaches. One shark would make things look interesting. With either, make sure there are caves and/or sheltered hiding places/terriotories.

Since you have a lot of space, I might be tempted to simply go with more tiger barbs. They do look cool when schooling in mass.

 

[Iron Man]

I know there will be the occasional nip among them.....and there is one already who I can tell is going to be kinda rough with the rosy barbs, as they don't quite catch on to the tiger barb pecking order thing. This is from observing them the past day or so.

I also know that even though they school....you are right...they get lost in tiger barb world and like I said get their own little pecking order going. They spar and etc. That's ok....as they never truely break their bonds and school very beautifully on their own.

Concerning the rosy barb thing.....I guess you would just have to see what I'm talking about. All of the fish in the tank are looking quite confused right now and I don't like it, and I don't think they like it either.....although the tiger barbs are showing BEAUTIFUL colors now which they were not in the lfs, which means they have had some relief of stress.

The only thing I regret about this is I hate to take these barbs back out. It was so easy to get the livebearers out....I felt so fortunate as I didn't have to take out the rocks/decor to get them all out in a matter of a couple of minutes.

These rosy barbs.....man are they fast. lol

I would love to see your 40 gallon with 20 barbs. Do they still school with that many? I bet that's a beautiful tank.

 

[millym]

hi
check out my sig for what we have with our tigers & we've never seen the tigers nip anything else in the tank they seem to ignore everything else & concentrate on annoying eachother, our corys have been in with the tigers for over 3 years with no probs at all
good luck

 

[Grouchy]

Quick picture:


Tiger barbs will school. They will also float there lazily, chase each other, spar, hide in the plants, and generally be unpredictable.

 

[Grouchy]

Oh, and I would not put neon, cardinal, glolite (or similar) tetras in with tiger barbs. I had a take with neons spring a leak and I had to put them somewhere. At that time I had the 10 gallon tiger barb baby tank and the 29 gallon main tank. I tried the 10 gallon first but they were immediately considered food. I placed them in the 29 gallon and a number of tiger barbs went after them quickly. The neons managed to survive long enough to get the tank sealed.

Colorful fish like those tetras, guppies, bettas, and gouramis are tempting targets for devilish tiger barbs.