Whats Compatable With Tiger Barbs

[Crow]

hi all.

I' m lookin into gettin a few Tiger Barbs. a small skool of bout 6 of em main reason is ive never seen such an active little fish they always seems to be on the move (When ive watched them neway)

Neway ive read their profile and it says they may nip at other fish. I asked assistant at a shop what i could mix with em and was told a few fish such as:

Angel fish (really suprised me seeing the angel has alot of flowing fins), Algae eaters (cat fish type nothe chineese type alto id like to get a few chineese algae ones), Othere barbs like danios n white clouds, silver dollars, neons, and basically any shark was thinking of a red tailed black shark due to his looks or maybe a raindow shark but i though be4 i purchase any fish and whislt my tank is cycling would be a good time to sort out what exactly to stock my tank with .

neway i thought id ask, to be on the safe side if i can mix and match em many tank mates i mite go for something a bit different.

oh yea my tank is 30 us gallons in size and waters ph is at bout 7.4

 

[nadajdui]

Definitely not angelfish, though I've never had tiger barbs. I would definitely suggest zebra danios, not the longfinned variety. They're so cute and curious. Maybe a BN Pleco or something like that, too would be good, and another bard species like rosy barbs.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Bristlenose sounds a good suggestion- they would keep doing their own thing, and they are quite heavily armoured. You might want to go with 8 tiger barbs and 1 bristlie. IF by algae eaters the shop meant plecs, this is the plec that would certainly work.

The shark might also work well- not sure how big a tank they want, though (canvass the cyprinids people). The rainbows are said to be slightly more peaceful than the red-tails, though I suppose a school of tiger barbs should be able to hold their own.

Danios are another possibility- then you'd need a school of at least 6-8 (wouldn't keep fewer of those than the barbs). In fact, I seem to remember that I did keep tiger barbs and danios together 30 years ago without problems. Though goodness knows my fishkeeping practices of 30 years back are not a reliable guide. 6 barbs and 6 danios would be fully stocking a 30 gallon, in fact ever so slightly overstocking, but should be ok.

I would avoid Chinese Algae Eaters like the plague- they are notoriously difficult to fit into a community tank once mature, they grow quite big and they are territorial, so you would only be looking at keeping one anyway. This is the one species I have actually regretted buying.

Don't think tiger barbs and White Clouds are compatible temperature-wise- white clouds are subtropical fish.

And I think I would avoid the angel. I don't feel there's really room for both their needs.