tiger barb aggression

[surf city baby]

I'll start by saying I know tiger barbs are aggressive and usually don't belong in a community tank.

I have one lonely tiger barb in a 3-gal. tank. All alone. Why? Because he killed the other two tiger barbs I had in there. Once he was all alone I put him into my 12-gallon. Don't ask what I was thinking; I don't know. After one day he'd already hounded a platy to death. I moved him back into the 3-gal.

The other day (when I picked up the clown loaches) I got one more tiger barb. I drove the guy at the LFS crazy by telling him I wanted one particular fish, because he was the most aggressive of all. I figured if he couldn't stand up to Ty Cobb (the bully barb), no one could.

After about 3 hours together, Ty began chasing the new barb and I could see he'd kill him. I was surprised the new one couldn't hold his own. So I took him out and put him into the 12-gal, where it seemed he'd do fine. But after a day I saw that Albert Belle (the new barb) was dogging one of the loaches.

Call me cold-hearted, but the barb cost about a sixth of what one loach cost, so I decided if I was going to lose a fish to my own stupidity it better not be an expensive one. So Albert's back in the 3-gal with Ty as of two days ago, and Albert's dorsal fin is already raggedy. I don't know why he doesn't swim into the little sculpture for refuge, but he just swims away with Ty right on his tail. Won't be long, I guess....

Unless someone has a miracle suggestion for me, that is. Can anyone help me save Albert without killing anyone in my community tank?

(Feel free to laugh. I won't be offended. I'm very new at this and I'll laugh with you.)

[scott]

I've never kept tiger barbs, well not really. I bought some as dithers for my cichlids and they lasted all of three hours but thats another story. But anyway, aren't they schooling fish? Wouldn't they do better, and have less agression if you put in about six or so of them? That way Ty's aggression is not focused on one fish, he has multiple outlets. That's the theory anyway. I don't know the parameters of your twelve gallon but why don't you try putting in six barbs, if they will fit, along with Ty and see if he doesn't chill out. You can always get them back out and return them if need be. Or you could just google tiger barbs and get some more info on their social behaviors.

[nboylie]

you could just take the barb back. or get a bunch more like 5 or so that should cut it down a lot.

[Kirin Fang]

The Tiger Barbs that I've kept have nipped at fins, but never have killed anything. I usually keep them with tetras.

When they are in groups of 5 or more, they'll usually chase each other around and not aim after other fish. Make sure that the smaller fish that you keep him with are fast swimmers and has different places to use for shelter. Also make sure that the fish you keep them with don't have long, flowing fins. They'll usually go after longer-finned fish before shorter-finned fish (sometimes they won't go after short fins at all).

[K_S_W_I_S_S]

i have 6 and they chase each other sometimes, but i havent seen them go after any other fish.. maybe a group will help...

[mogurnda]

To reiterate what others have said, I have found that any fewer than 5 aggressive barbs is just asking for trouble. I have 2 male and 3 female black rubies, and they look fantastic. The males chase each other and the females, but no one loses scales or fins. When a few jumped last year and I was down to 3, one male looked great, and the other 2 were shredded almost to death. All better after adding a few more.

[Thomas Davie]

along with about 24 Neon Terta's and 1 Firemouth, and an SAE.

Tom

[OrionGirl]

Am I reading this right--you have clown loaches in a 12 gallon tank? You do know those guys will need to be moved into a much bigger system eventually? Like in less than 6 months if you don't want to stunt them?

Barbs are aggressive. You can't change the nature of the fish. Adding enough that they can bother each other all a little bit will help, but not resolve the problem. You don't have enough room in a 3 gallon tank for enough barbs for this to be a solution, nor in the 12, since it sounds like there are a lot of potential fish in there as well.

Keep in mind that once a fish has established a territory, it will defend it. No barb is going to be introduced and be able to deal with the beatings of the home player. Doesn't work that way. 2 fish new to the tank will scuffle and pick territory, add a third and it will be beaten. You can re-arrange the tank and see if this confuses the established fish enough to give the newbie some room to work with.

I'd just take them back.

[mogurnda]

Ack! I just reread the original post. In a 12 gallon, forget what I just said. Either invest in a bigger tank, or dump the barb and get things that are more appropriate for a small tank. There are many fish that stay small and are very attractive, and your LFS should be able to steer you toward them. Having the barb in the 3 gallon is just making it suffer, even in the short term. I agree with OrionGirl that the loaches will rapidly grow to a size that will be very unhappy in a 12.
I disagree about the issue of territoriality, though. Barbs are freely roving, schooling fish in the wild. They establish dominance, but aren't married to pieces of the landscape. This also means that it's unlikely redecorating will do much. Heck, I have rarely seen it work for truly territorial fish, like cichlids, in 30 years. Among barbs, 2 or 3 individuals will pick on each other constantly, while larger groups allow the aggression ot be distributed.

[OrionGirl]

Really? I've had some success with the re-arranging, but it's usually more like re-building, where the entire tank is re-arranged, not just a few rocks or plants swapped around. Mostly I've done this with gouramies and eels, and SW fish.

[mogurnda]

This is why one never takes advice from one individual (like me). People often recommend it, like you did, so it must work in some cases, but I have even packed fish up and moved them to new tanks, only to have them re-start the squabbles where they left off.
I don't want to make too big a deal of this, but I think there are different ways of dealing with aggression. I would never in a million years suggest adding more cichlids or clowns to a tank to reduce aggression, but that strategy has worked pretty well for me with some schooling fish.

[OrionGirl]

Heck, getting the experience of a bunch of people is the primary reason to post a question to these boards! :D There are many different ways to do just about everything involved with this hobby. Picking one that works is the hard part!

[mogurnda]

Yep, I totally agree.