Your advice on Tiger Barbs???

paytheplayer

I've been interested in getting a small school of tiger barbs for a while now. I have a community tank, and a semi aggressive tank, along with a RBP tank. I've read that they are best behaved when kept with 5 or more together.

I just wanted to know if anybody has any advice about these guys. They're one of those types of fish that I've read mixed reviews about them all over the net. Thanks.[/i]

willow

hi
i have tiger barbs.
great fish,bigger the group the better,then they should keep the arguments to themselves.they were also in with
odessa barbs,ticto barbs,and albino tigers.
they are in with pearl gouramis,a gold gourami.Angel fish,
neons,yoyo loaches,clown loaches.couple of plecs.
i have them in the 4ft tank, i find at times they are a fast swimming fish
and really like the room,the tank is planted with large
vallis,there is also wood in there too.

iamntbatman

I have a 20g tank with tiger barbs, dwarf puffers, and a clown pleco. Mixing the barbs and the puffers was kind of an experiment that actually has turned out well (other than two of the little puffers dying from an unknown cause, likely and internal parasite of some kind). I started with five barbs but there was a lot of aggression within the group, so I added a sixth and things have been going smoothly ever since. My barbs are ravenous eaters and fast movers. The tanks they came from in the LFS were full of finless other fish. I believe that their reputation is completely justified and that they'd need appropriate tank mates that would either be short finned and fast or aggressive enough to keep the barbs from bothering them. With the puffers, I lucked out because the barbs don't seem to even notice they exist, even when the puffers try to school with the barbs.

So, my advice is, if you can get an appropriate home for them, definitely give them a shot as they're great looking fish and behave like a school of mini piranhas. Cool fish.

willow

yeah,and if you hand feed them,they attack like em too.

paytheplayer

Do they eat live foods at all?

willow

yes they do.
blood worm,daphina,brine shrimp,real shrimp.
to name but a few. :)

paytheplayer

O sorry I thought that live foods meant like Alive foods haha. I meant like guppies, goldfish, earthworms that kind of thing :)

willow

ahhhh i seee. :)
well i never tried mine on worms before.
mine have eaten guppy fry and platy fry before,
that's how i have kept the livebarer population down.
:)

beetlebz

before they all died in a tank crash, my tiger barbs (had 12 in a 110g tank) would swarm my arm and nip at it when I vacuumed the gravel lol they didnt cause any problems when I had them, they just about only ate tubifex worms and tetra color crisps. I kept them with at one time 3 severums, a pleco, a rainbow shark, a krib, and 2 blue gourami.

Amphitrite

I kept a group of nine tiger barbs in a community tank for a short time, thinking that since they were in a group they would leave the other fish alone. I ended up having to move them to another tank. Despite being in a group they nipped at the fins of my other fish and wouldn't leave them alone.

If you do decide on adding a group to your community tank keep a very close eye on them. Many people successfully keep these fish as part of a community, but unfortunately that's not always the case.