Spawning Gold Barbs

[ljse]

I have three gold barbs in my 20 gal tank and yesterday I noticed that the two that I think are males had a red color on their undersides, they are visibly smaller than the other barb and the other barbs stomach did not turn red. Is this a sign of spawning. I assumed they were trying to mate because the two smaller barbs chased the big one all around the tank for a few hours. Today the red is not as bright as yesterday.

 

[rrkss]

My barbs spawned in the main tank similar to the way you describe. The males chased the female and pressed their head into the female's belly. Some white clumps of eggs came out of her rear end looking much like small styrofoam clumps. Then my tetras swam up and ate most of the eggs before anything can happen. Some did hatch though as I saw what appeared to be little tadpoles attached to the glass (fry?) for a day. My filter + my fish probably had dinner after that as I don't see anything more.

 

[ljse]

That sounds like what happened in my tank. Did your fish's undersides become red? I cant find any eggs, most likely the cories and tetras had a feast. Althogh I'm hoping there might be some left in the java moss.

 

[rrkss]

I saw my tetras feast but some eggs survived in my dense plants. They hatched but my filters and fish probably took care of the fry as I only saw them for one day. If you want to spawn them probably a seperate tank would be useful. I was planning on breeding my gold barbs but I am in the middle of an ich outbreak in my 55 gal and have my 10 gallon hospital tank set up for any emergencies so the barbs will have to wait.

I did not look at the bellies of my barbs but the males had their fins turn bright red and the number of black spots increased dramaticly. It almost looked like they were freckled. The females also had a slight increase in orange in their fins but not so dramatic as the men.

 

[ljse]

Hopefully they will go at it again and maybe I will find some eggs and move them to my little tank, where hpoefully the shrimp will leave them alone.