Tiger Barbs-Good or Bad?

Hi, I need some advice.......I really like tiger barbs, but have heard that they can be agro / fin nippers in a community tank. The guy at the LFS says that if I put a shoal of +/- 10-15 tigers in they will leave the other fish alone. Is this true and are all barbs prone to this behaviour?

My tank is a 1.2 set up with plenty of plants. I will probably end up with various tetras and dwarf gouramies and possibly dwarf chiclids.

TIA

 

I have 6 and i can say they are HELL haha, im considering trading them for something else in my comunity tank, they try nip everything that swims past them. Maybe in a bigger group they will be better

 

The bigger the school of tigers the better behaved they are.... this doesnt mean they will be well behaved all the time tho and your gouramis might have a tuff time

 

Like someone posted here a while ago.............
Barbs = Barbarians

 

Tigar barbs = trouble
2 tiger barbs = double trouble
a school of tiger barbs = a mob!

 

ive had 2 schools of 5 each, and in my small 60L they were fine, but just dont ad any fry. at the moment in my 1.2 theres 5, and various other fish and im not sure who the culprit is regarding fin nipping, some of the tiger barbs are missing some tail aswell, but im thinking that the red eye tetras may be the problem there, but from what i can see, mine is fine

 

I have six, last few days been missing neons thought it was the barbs, found out tonight its the darios eating them live, barbs do fin nip other fish in tank

 

I have 2 albino tiger barbs. they are not to aggressive with my other fish no nipped fins !

they really like their food . I feed my eel and ghost knife by hand and now the barbs started joining . they keep biting my arm more then anything
I have noticed that one of the barbs has a huge belly I believe its a she and is full of eggs . does any one know how to tell if the other one is a male? how do they act around spawning? where does she lay eggs ?
I really want to see the eggs . they won't survive long with my fish but when I get another tank ill get them on their own

 

Not all barbs are agresive.I've got Cherry Barbs,Golden Barbs and Odessa Barbs sharing a tank with angels,rummy noses and black widows.No problems.
The reasoning behind keeping Tiger Barbs in big schools is simple,they sort out a pecking order amongst themselves and the constant "fighting" for dominance keeps aggression towards the other inmates down.

 

Iv got 4 in a 1.2 community and they just chase each other around. The problem is when a fish shows signs of weakness like if they are being lethargic, then they will nip their fins.

 

i have been thinking about getting a school of about 10 green tiger barbs for a long long time now, they look beautiful in a school, but i have been observing them at the various lfs for the last few weeks, and there you really get to see them in large numbers.. all i can say is, from their aggresseive behavior in the lfs tanks, i decided to rather not risk my precious fishies in my tank

are there ANY suitable tankmates for tiger barbs?

 

Yes! More tiger barbs!

 

You need lots of them in a school and even then they will nip other fishes fins, when I had a community tank they caused a lot of trouble chasing most of the fish around and causing distress.

 

I've got 4 tiger barbs in a community tank and they are a pleasure. They eat like absolute pigs but don't give any of the other fish a hard time. They chased the new cory's for about 20minutes and then lost interest.

They are getting a bit big for the tank so if anyone has a good home I'm willing to trade them for fish or plants.

If I put a bottom feeder food block in the tank they destroy it, to the point where one of the bigger ones will swim it into the glass to ram it passed his lips - like I said little pigs.

I'll post a pic tonight when I get home.

 

I have a school of 8 tiger barbs , they are a pleasure to watch while "fighting" or when playing theire chasing games. They are generally aggresive fish , but they dont give me any trouble in my tank. I keep zebra danios , kuhli loaches , black kuhli loaches , chinese algea eaters , Bala sharks , red tail black sharks , pepper catfish , chocolate catfish , and a peacock eel with them.
Then also @ brads: I am not sure how ro tell the sexes with albino tiger barbs , but with the normal tigers barbs , the female tends to be a bit fatter , she gets an eggspot on her bottom fins and a black spot somewhere between the bottom fins. The barbs need a big tank to spawn , because when spawning they perform a spawning run (I think the male chases the female during this) where they need to build enough speed to actually start spawning.
Hope my comments help =)

 

I have 15 in a tank just for them. 3 normal, 6 albino and 6 green. They are an absloute joy to watch. They are very active and definitely little pigs when it comes to feeding time. They chomp the food within second.
One of them is getting really fat below the bottom fins, im guessing it's a female. I know you supposed to separate the male and the female and feed them a high protein diet and then re-introduce them into the tank that you want them to spawn in. The only problem i have is that i cannot tell which male to take or if they have paired off.

 

:amazed:I never really had any problems with my Tiger Barbs. Maybe it's because they where bred in Durban

Sure, they nipped the comet and dominated the Gourami but when I posted my early tank stock here, someone said that they will kill my 6cm Angelfish

But they never disturbed any other fish besides other tiger barbs in the tank.

Really a happy go lucky fish. The cutest of all the barbs :bigsmile:.

Once you get them many people just say you cant put too many others in with them but I did

Regards

TM

 

if you want to add them you have to add all at once or the older ones will kill the new ones that yo add, iv also noticed as soon as one becomes dominant it will harras all the others into hiding, or other way around if one becomes weaker or is smaller the will gang together and nip till it dies