Tiger Barb strange behavior

Lindamac

I have four Tiger Barbs...2 male and 2 female. I have had them for nearly a year now with no problems. About a week ago one of the females started swimming strange, with her head pointed down. One of the males occasionally nips at her underside. The female seems fine with it comes to feeding time, eating and swimming normally. But then she goes back to her position of pointing down and just kind of floating around, unless the male comes to nip at her. The female is very fat so at first I thought this might be some sort of mating behavior but now I'm not so sure. Any ideas about this strange behavior?

1077

Have actually seen this quite a bit with Tiger Barb's.
So long as water parameter's are good = zero ammonia and nitrites,I would not worry.
I would however,, if space permit's,,add another four or five of these fish for they do like the company of other's of their kind.

whitecloud7

I used to have a lot of tiger barbs and saw the same exact thing: the female does a headstand, shakes in place and then the male comes by and picks at her belly. However I'm not sure what it's all about but I have seen it also. I would make sure the fish doesn't have any visible signs of illness and make sure the water's ok and make sure she's eating. Apparently this is a common thing with them!

Lindamac

She is eating fine and the water parameters are fine too. The only thing I can see is her tail fin is nipped a bit. It makes me feel better to know that this isn't unusual behavior. I guess we'll just see how it goes. Thanks so much for your input!