No Angels with Barbs?

[aknif]

I noticed a few responses in a different thread I posted to, and now I have a new question...

I have a new 125g tank. When I set it up, the LFS guy told me 4 barbs and 4 angels would be fine to start off the tank with. He sold me 2 tiger barbs, 2 albino tiger barbs, 2 rosy cheeked angels, and 2 marbled angels. I have not noticed any aggression from the barbs toward the angels at all, but when I get very close up, I can tell that there has been some nipping going on to the two marble angels. They have the smaller bodies and longer fins, the other two angels are more stout bodied with short fins and they look perfect.

So, now I see that I need to return the barbs to the LFS, which bums me out because I really love barbs, but what would you guys add in their place? Here is what I have in there now:

2 rosy cheek angels
2 marbled angels
2 pearl gouramis
2 platinum gouramis
1 blue gourami
1 lavender gourami
A pair of Kribensis cichlids
(and the barbs that'll be leaving tomorrow)

All the fish now are between 1-3 inches in body size, I don't want to get more than 25 fish total in there since (I hope) they'll all grow up and I don't want to overload the tank.

What else would you recommend?

 

[james1644]

may not be the barbs that are beating up your angels. I also have two marbles and the tend to get at each other every once in a while. These two are in with 5 gold barbs and they do not show any agression toward each other. I know for a fact that the marbles have picked on each other and ocassionally I will get one that has a nipped fin, but once they figure out their pecking order in the tank again everything is fine. If your marbles are the smaller pair of angels they could be getting picked on by the others.

In 20 years of keeping fish I have experienced the so called community fish and the so called aggressive fish. You can purchase a school of so called community fish and find a bad apple that attacks everything in your tank, or you can buy the agressive fish and it never touch the precious school of neons in the community tank.

Since this is a new tank I would make several observations to ensure that the attacks are from the barbs. Also because the tank is new each has to learn their place in the pecking order.

HTH

Jim

 

[Yo_Loach]

Angels sometimes are aggressive with each other, they are both semi-aggressive fish. I dont know. maybe if you add in some extra hiding spots so chasing is prevented, over time they might get bored with each other. -hope that helps.

and are any of the other fish nipping and such?

 

[aknif]

The only aggression that i've seen at all in the tank is the larger Kribensis WILL chase fish off the bottom of the tank right after feeding time. They're down there trying to get the goodies out of the rocks and if any angels or gouramis try to go down and do some cleaning up, they chase them off, but it doesn't seem that they ever have contact with them, they just swim at them really fast and the fish takes off. The barbs just hang out together and do their own thing. It's actually funny because the Kribensis never chase the barbs off the bottom, they only chase the angels and gouramis off. Guess the barbs are too small for them to care about? I have no idea.

I do watch my fish a lot each day. Since it's a new tank, and the biggest tank i've ever had, i'm kinda still fascinated with it. I watch the fish for a few minutes several times a day while i'm chasing my kids around, and then, at night, my husband and I will often sit for a good 30-45 minutes or more, just watching them. In all that time, i've never seen the barbs pick on anyone and i've never seen the angels harass each other either. Only the Kribensis guarding their crumbs... but when the food is gone and the fish are just swimming about, the Kribensis don't seem to bother anyone anymore.

I really don't want to ditch the barbs if they're not doing the damage. I guess I just have to hope to see something to know for sure.

 

[theuselessfew]

I'd still keep an eye on the barbs. 6 is usually their magic number as far as school size goes. The larger the school, the more they will keep their aggression 'in the family'. Personally, I'd take the barbs back, and get another pair of angels. My $.02.