Tiger Barb Breeding

[Liquid_Pyro]

Attempting to spawn my tiger barbs again, its been almost 6 months since I did it last time,

I have 10 tiger barbs, 4 female and 6 males, so I removed 4 females from my 40 gallon tank and put them in an established 10 gallon tank, they have been in the 10 gallon for 7 days now and they barely eat and are not fat with eggs anymore, I am concerned for their health.

The plan was to separate the males from females for 2 weeks of conditioning on high quality flake food, white worms, blood worms and brine shrimp, but they are loosing weight not gaining it.

What can I do?


I have bred them before, but never ran into this problem

 

[esoepr1976]

Have you tested the water? I know you said the tank was established, but maybe something is amiss with the water? I guess first thing I would do is test water and maybe do a water change. Other than not eating and losing weight, are they showing any other signs of illness?

Emily

 

[Wren]

I agree with testing the water. Four mature female tiger barbs is a heavy load for a 10 gal tank. Especially if the goal is to feed them heavily to condition them and they aren't eating well - maybe you have some food decomposing too...

Good luck breeding them!
wren

 

[Liquid_Pyro]

The water should be perfect, as its been running for months with a few guppies, changing 40% of the water weekly, and when I swapped out the guppies for the barbs, I started changing 25% of the water daily

 

[esoepr1976]

Just because the water should be perfect doesn't mean it is. The only way to know for sure is to test it. Do you have a test kit? The freshwater master test kit by API (liquid test kit), is a really good one. You should get one and test your water.

Emily

 

[Liquid_Pyro]

Yes I have the API kit, would water quality be the only problem that would cause my barbs to be shy and not eat? I had floating plants and a cave for them to hide in.

 

[esoepr1976]

There may be many reasons your barbs are shy and not eating, but water quality is a likely culprit, and it's the easiest to rule in or out. If you have a test kit, test the water, and you will know if that's your problem. If the tests are good, then you can look for other problems.

Emily