question about tiger barbs...

[K_S_W_I_S_S]

i have 7 cories and 2 pictus cats and 4 tiger barbs in my 55g, would i be able to buy more tiger barbs? oh yeah, there is also a pleco in there too... he is like 5 inches long. i could move the pleco to my 125g if you think i should. and how big should i expect them to get? i read that they get to 2.5 inches.... and one more thing, how eays is it to breed them?

[K_S_W_I_S_S]

....... .........

[famman]

sounds pretty full, don't tigers get kinda big, like 4-5"?
I'd say 1 or 2 more tigers at best.
good luck
:)

[Weasel6]

Tiger Barbs don't get very big at all, maybe 1 1/2" long. I'd say yes. No more than 5 though.

[rdelbalso]

Well, I am no expert, but I would be careful with the tiger barbs and pictus cats. I have a 3.5" pictus cat in my 20g with (4) now (3) tiger barbs. this morning i woke up to a tank with a missing green tiger barb. i am quite disappointed. i really liked him, but he was a little small and the pictus is getting bigger. the pictus is fairly nocturnal and the barbs are an easy target at night.
good luck with your tank.

[K_S_W_I_S_S]

thanks for the warning, but i have never had a prob with pictus cats eating any of my fish, i used to keep some with some guppies and nothing ever happened, and my tigers are bigger than my pictus cats mouths are....

[thom336]

if you increase your tiger barb shoal to 6, then the agression among them will be much more evenly spread out.

[rob_hoosier]

I never saw a tiger barb that is more than 3" big. They like each other's company. Most of them (especially males) may nip fins of each other or other fish. They usually stop after being in a tank for few weeks and establish their "spots" in your tank. If you have problems with males chasing the females, just buy couple more females and that should keep your school of tigers in "balance". I think for a 55 gallon (depending on your filtration system) you should be ok with at least 3 or 4 more of them. For breeding, raise the temperature slightly and feed them meaty foods (e.g. bloodworms). PH for breeding should be around 6.5 to 6.7.

[ChilDawg]

Ideally, they should be kept in shoals of even numbers, I believe. I sort of understand why, but I would rather that somebody else weighed in with the true reason rather than my (possibly-flawed) understanding.

[ChilDawg]

I reached a rather objectionable number with my last post, so I am just using this to increase the number by one. I apologize! :)

[rob_hoosier]

Still showing the same number of posts (lol).
OOPS...........it just changed to the less objectionable one. :)

[thom336]

how do u write so many posts matt?? a week ago you were only about 20 ahead of me (i think...or maybe i was lookin at someone else's...sure it was u thou)!!

[ChilDawg]

I think it was me as well. Responding to posts such as this helps, as does the fact that I've had very little homework and thus a lot of computer time over the last week or so. (i.e., I was at 634 at the beginning of the day, and now look where I am!)

[thom336]

what

[thom336]

so doing

[thom336]

it like this

[thom336]

can really help?

;)

[ChilDawg]

Yes, but my posts generally have a little more substance than that ;)

I just write as things come to my head and then look for all the other facts as I can get them. I want people to feel like they are getting a decent response in a decent amount of time.

[thom336]

who can say better than that?

well, 'better than that' - i can! lol. sorry, bad joke. he he - i find it funny thou, i'll b chuckling all night at that...
he he...


he he...

[BluEyes]

Originally posted by ChilDawg
Ideally, they should be kept in shoals of even numbers

the fish don't know if there is an even or odd number of them!

In a 55g, you can definately fit more T-barbs. I'd go for 7-9 of them, if you like the species. With a good-sized group, they play amongst themselves and leave everybody else alone. They are very active fish as well - fun to watch play!

[ChilDawg]

I just remembered reading that somewhere, but I guess that it does seem stupid. Maybe, if there is a series of one-on-one aggressions, this doesn't leave the odd fish out...I cannot remember the reasoning, but I guess that fish can't distinguish between odd and even numbers, so I would agree and probably retract my earlier statement until I can relocate the article.

[OrionGirl]

Actually, outside of pair-established fish like kribs, the usual recommendation is for odd numbers. This is based on the rather silly fact that small groups of odd numbers are aesthetically more pleasing than small groups of even numbers. Once you get above about 10 items in the group, there isn't a preference one way or the other.

[ChilDawg]

Thank you, OG...I knew that I had heard something like that, but I apparently got it backwards and overemphasized a dumb reason for the "necessity" of such an enumeration!

~Matthew

[OrionGirl]

Are you being sarcastic again? ;) :D

[ChilDawg]

hahaha, Nope! No emoticons there!

[thom336]

there is a hierarchy among tiger barbs, with there being a sort of leader, and the rest falling into line below. it is recommended that you keep odd numbers purely on theoretical terms in my opinion. however, there have been excellent examples of the more spread out aggresion rather than centralised when tiger barbs are kept in odd numbers as opposed to even. incidently i keep an even numbered shoal of tiger barbs with absolutly no problems. but then not all fish are the same. the leader tends to have more intense colouring for those of you that are interested, and this colouring can clearly be seen when looking at clown loach shoals, with the top guy have the darkest black lines.

[BluEyes]

I think the whole even/odd thing is just a nice urban myth - even up to that famous quote "you have to buy an odd number, or else one will die" :eek:
I guess it would restore balance to the universe, though :rolleyes:

But, at least, IMO, odd numbers are more asthetically pleasing. I've got a group of 4 glo-lites, and they're always sitting in a square *blah*. Having an odd number tends to throw off the symetry. Of course, then one goes and hides...

There is definately a pecking order with barbs, though. The more you have the less chance of any one fish being picked on too much. Some years ago, I had a 15g with 2 cories, 1 butterflyfish, and 5 t-barbs. Barbs completley ignored everyone else, even those long fins on the butterfly! Odd numbers? Dunno, but the fish had a wonderful time chasing each other all over, and getting into their little head-tail tussles!