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Platinum Barb bully

7K views 14 replies 4 participants last post by  AaronCombs 
#1 ·
I think I put this thread in the wrong place the first time, so hopefully this is the right place to ask this. I haven't had a fish tank in a while, but I decided to get one again recently. I went to the pet store and the Platinum Barb's stood out to me because they seemed every active and playful. So I bought three of them and an algae eater. It was immediately evident that one particular barb was highly aggressive towards the other two barbs. I thought this was fine at first, that they were just playing, but he seems so aggressive. The two calmer barbs will just be chilling at the bottom of the tank or calmly swimming along, and the aggressive one will just start chasing it all around the tank, nipping at the other fish. I haven't noticed any physical damage to the two barbs so far, but should I be worried about the aggressive one? Is he stressing out the other two fish or is it all in fun? Any insight on this would be great, thanks!
 
#9 ·
Sorry about the delay in reply, I had to go out. They're actually just a color-type of Tiger Barbs I believe. And yes, the algae eater is a bristlenose I'm pretty sure.
What would you suggest about the Barbs? Do I need to add more ASAP to make a bigger school or is it that my tank is too small? I told the pet store my tank size before I bought them and they didn't say anything about it.
 
#10 ·
Those darn pet stores! Tiger barbs can reach three inches full grown, really do need to kept in a group of six, and from everything I've read they should be in a 55gl. The require lots of room and are very active. I wonder if you can exchange them for something more appropriate for your size tank?
 
#13 ·
they only platinum fish i can come up with is a platinum hatchetfish... had to pull out my fish book to find that one...



but anyway do you have tiger barb, or a tinfoil barb? reason I ask is tinfoil look more platinum... but tiger barbs are more common.. Can you take a picture for me? or can you find a picture online of what they look like.
lol i doubt it's a tinfoil b/c they get up to like 14 inches lol...

umm other barbs..... lets see here...
sawbwa barb - kinda silvery but they don't get to 3 inches... dunno let me know and I'll give you a lot more info.


generally you want a min of 6 barbs, but it's preferred if the min is 8... if you have a small group they will pick on other fish out of boredom.
 
#14 ·
I've seen the "platinum" color morph of tiger barbs before. Unlike the "albino" tiger barbs, which are just a light orange with whitish stripes instead of black, the platinum barbs are pretty uniformly white but they still have strong orange and black coloration in the fins. The ones I've seen in person looked pretty neat but the ones I'm finding on Google image search don't look as good.

They should be treated just like any other tiger barbs. Don't keep them with long-finned or skittish fish, keep them in a large group and give them plenty of swimming room.
 
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