Heh
. I should probably add that the female is the absolute boss of my gang. If one of the males got on her wrong side, she will keep him in the other half of the tank.Cherry Barbs
- Thread starter SchizotypalVamp
- Start date
. I should probably add that the female is the absolute boss of my gang. If one of the males got on her wrong side, she will keep him in the other half of the tank.
I'd say the ratio should be 1 male per 3 females not one female per 3 males! If white clouds make your list of 10 gallon fish, cherry barbs should as well since they're no more active and no bigger than the white clouds.
Just because they use all of a certain size tank doesn't mean they don't belong in a smaller tank - they swim all over my 36" long tank, but that doesn't mean they have to be kept in a tank that large. I've seen them swimming all over a 55 gallon tank, too, but I don't think anyone would say they should be limited to nothing smaller than 55 gallons...they're 2" long fish. With ANY fish, a bigger tank is always ideal, but unless you have a several hundred gallon tank you'll never come close to immitating even the smallest of natural environments.
Eric
Just because they use all of a certain size tank doesn't mean they don't belong in a smaller tank - they swim all over my 36" long tank, but that doesn't mean they have to be kept in a tank that large. I've seen them swimming all over a 55 gallon tank, too, but I don't think anyone would say they should be limited to nothing smaller than 55 gallons...they're 2" long fish. With ANY fish, a bigger tank is always ideal, but unless you have a several hundred gallon tank you'll never come close to immitating even the smallest of natural environments.
Eric
It's based on the fact that the males are constantly after the females and adding more females disperses the males' attention to multiple females...much the same as it is with live bearers. The majority of cherry barb aggression I've seen is male vs male, and having fewer males to decrease aggression simply makes sense.
I've found, over the past 34 years of fishkeeping, that most sexually dimorphic schooling species usually do better with more females than males. Now gold barbs...doesn't seem to matter at all - but then again they're not dimorphic.
Eric
You see, while your arguments are logical, I don't quite see any other evidence in what you say than purely theoretical considerations, except the point that you observed mostly male/male aggression (which in my experience is very mild). The only other actual observations that I saw mentioned were Nick's and mine, which both came to the conclusion that a ratio of many males to few or even one female works fine, whereas a single male with several females doesn't. A simple appeal to authority doesn't really void this actual observation for me. Furthermore, the only published spawning study that I saw used 2 males per female in their spawning groups.
I also don't see any similarities in the behavior of livebearers and cherry barbs. The chasing patterns are actually quite different, as I specifically mentioned in the other thread.
If I would have to guess, I'd say that the male/female ratio in cherry barbs is mostly irrelevant (similar to what you say about gold barbs), as long as you don't have a single male (this was the only situation where problems had actually been observed). I'm perfectly happy with revising this position if someone tells me of evidence to the opposite, but as it stands, I don't see that the "more females than males" position has any merit in the case of cherry barbs. I have the living counter-example in my tanks.
Just to clarify my experience. In each of my 2 tanks I had 1 male with 2 or 3 females and there was much aggression by the male towards the females as well as the other fish. Some of the aggression toward the females could have been attempts at mating. Now that I've put all the barbs together the aggression seems to be gone. I now have 2 males and 5 females together. Combining all my barbs together didn't really change the male/female ratio. But it did increase the numbers of both males and females.
I can also offer some evidence on the matter of spawning. The barbs which were in the small tank did successfully spawn. I had 1 male and 3 females there. I currently have at least 4 fry in that tank. The fry are of 3 different sizes so i believe they are from 3 separate spawnings.
Those are my observations. I don't know what conclusions can be drawn from those but maybe combined with others they may yield something.
Sorry for mixing that together. As you said, this seems to be the typical case of just more fish diverting the aggression, without gender being a factor.
That's cool
. I had also spawning attempts during and after water changes, but this happened over bare gravel instead of above the plants. I guess my CAE and the bumblebee cat were happy 
.
Ulan - You're rather quick to challenge others. What is your experience with cherry barbs? How many times have you kept them? Have you kept them at other male to female ratios than you currently have? How long have they lived? In what size tanks have you kept them?
Unless you've ran studies (i.e. - 10 tanks of different sizes with different male/female ratios for a good 5+ years minimum), you can't truly say you're coming from a more theoretically sound grounding than I am.
I've kept cherry barbs, if my memory is right 4, maybe 5 times, off and on over the past 34 years. I've kept them in 10 gallon tanks, 20 highs, 20 longs, and in my current 33 gallon tank (36" long). I really like them as dithers for dwarf cichlids in smaller sized tanks. I've kept them once with an equal number of males and females and had higher aggression. Aggression was lower with ratios of 1 male to 3+ females. Maybe you have more experience with cherry barbs than I do...I'd appreciate knowing that because I would give more weight to your opinion if your experience exceeds mine. I'd also give your opinion more weight if others were stepping forward with similar stories (more males are better than more females).
However, Nick has come forth and is reporting male/female ratios similar to what I suggested - he's not reporting he has more females than males.
It's fairly rare in nature to find animal populations of any sort with more males than females. In fact, I'm not aware of any species where more males is the norm and would love to hear of such an anomaly.
Eric
Unless you've ran studies (i.e. - 10 tanks of different sizes with different male/female ratios for a good 5+ years minimum), you can't truly say you're coming from a more theoretically sound grounding than I am.
I've kept cherry barbs, if my memory is right 4, maybe 5 times, off and on over the past 34 years. I've kept them in 10 gallon tanks, 20 highs, 20 longs, and in my current 33 gallon tank (36" long). I really like them as dithers for dwarf cichlids in smaller sized tanks. I've kept them once with an equal number of males and females and had higher aggression. Aggression was lower with ratios of 1 male to 3+ females. Maybe you have more experience with cherry barbs than I do...I'd appreciate knowing that because I would give more weight to your opinion if your experience exceeds mine. I'd also give your opinion more weight if others were stepping forward with similar stories (more males are better than more females).
However, Nick has come forth and is reporting male/female ratios similar to what I suggested - he's not reporting he has more females than males.
It's fairly rare in nature to find animal populations of any sort with more males than females. In fact, I'm not aware of any species where more males is the norm and would love to hear of such an anomaly.
Eric
