Tiger Barbs

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Offline Paddy60

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Tiger barbs
« on: March 04, 2017, 09:23:02 AM »
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should i be ok with tiger barbs with hard water and 8.2Ph.Seriously fish are saying up to 8.0 Ph.Think fish saying ok to 8.5 Ph

Offline fcmf

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2017, 09:45:34 AM »
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Of more importance is your water hardness - check what it is on your water supplier's website by inputting your postcode; you should get a result in degrees Clark/French/German and possibly other units of measurement.

If the degrees of hardness German is between 5-19dH, or between 89-339ppm, then you ought to be fine. There's a great converter on here at http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/calculators/hardness-conversion

Hope that helps.

Offline Richard W

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2017, 03:30:04 PM »
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More important still is how many you are going to get and if you ate prepared for the fact that they might nip each other, and possibly other fish. I started with 10, on the advice that if you had that many there would be no problems, but over two years (once they became adult) they nipped each others fins constantly resulting in infections, stress and eventual death for all but one. Some people have had different results, but they do seem very unpredictable. Not a fish I would have again, there are many more reliably peaceful ones to choose from.

Offline Paddy60

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2017, 05:20:44 PM »
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i was thinking of about 15 ,but was concerned because i have read about people having problems with these. so open to other stocking  sugestions for hard water 16dh 8.2ph 100ltr 80cm tank

Offline Littlefish

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2017, 12:09:28 AM »
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I really like the colour of the green ones, so I had 10 standard and 10 green in a Fluval Roma 125. My water is similar to yours @Paddy60 and is 17dh. Unfortunately I didn't get all my fish at the same time, and possibly not all from the same place, and when I put them all together things were ok for a while (1 fatality in first week), but then I had a spate of unexplained deaths, with one fish dying each day, no signs of injury. Spoke to manager at MA and he suggested a treatment (which I think was for internal parasites, but can't quite remember), which seemed to help after a few days. I'd lost quite a few fish, and was down to 12.
Since then, one female was lost due to excessive hanky-panky related nipping. She was removed from the tank and quarantined to give her time to recover, which she did, but it all happened again when she was returned to the tank and she didn't survive the second time. That was a big disappointment as the pre-hanky panky related swimming antics were adorable, and I thought that things were starting to settle down.
In the past few weeks I've lost another 2 fish.
I'm stuck between reworking/replanting the entire tank and increasing tiger barb numbers to previous levels (too concerned to mix anything else with them), and giving up on tiger barbs completely (apologies for the defeatist attitude there), which is a shame because I really enjoyed watching them when things were going well as they are active and inquisitive fish with lovely colours and markings.
Spoke to one of the LFS staff and they suggested moving them to a bigger tank. I do have a Roma 200 in the spare bedroom which is currently empty. I had other plans for that, but the plans could change again if required.
I'm still very undecided, and will be following this thread with keen interest in the hope that I can pick up some useful information as well.  :)

Offline Richard W

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2017, 07:12:30 AM »
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I really like Odessa barbs. They are colourful, lively, peaceful and tough, tolerate a wide range of conditions of hardness and temperature. Mine have given no problems whatsoever.

Seriously Fish gives pH 6.5 - 8.5 but says about the type locality where they were first found "The waters were generally clear, lacking in aquatic plants, and flowing over limestone resulting in a pH value of around 11.0."

pH 11, if they can live in that then they can live in anything.

Offline Paddy60

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2017, 07:26:12 AM »
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@Littlefish sory to hear about your problembs.Im just re thinking my stocking opptions

Offline Matt

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2017, 08:02:29 AM »
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I too discounted tiger barbs due to their aggression. I plan to keep harlequin rasboras instead as there are also three colour variants of this species, 'normal', purple/black/blue (essentially the same thing and equivalent to green tiger barbs), and gold (equivalent to albino tiger barbs). They are a little smaller and have a similar body shape too.

Offline Littlefish

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2017, 08:49:32 AM »
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Others have had great success with tiger barbs. ExtremeOne/Simon had a fantastic community tank which included a group of tiger barbs, and it was videos of that tank that made me decide on getting some myself.
Harlequins are beautiful. I've always liked them, but hadn't kept them due to my hard water. However, according to SF they have the same requirements for softer water as the bristlenose & bea, so if I'm using wood, leaves, and bottled water to bring down the hardness in their new tank, then harlequins are still an option.  :)

Just need to decide what to do with the tiger barbs....perhaps I'll have a rummage through the old posts for information on Simon's tank to see what he mixed them with, then perhaps moving them to a larger community tank could be the answer. Oh, I can see several hours of rummaging through information and playing on the community creator ahead of me.  ;D

Offline Matt

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2017, 08:59:05 AM »
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From memory Simon's tank was very heavily planted and so breaking up line-of-sight, I wonder if this is an important factor?

Offline Littlefish

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2017, 09:10:54 AM »
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Possibly. My tanks are nowhere near as well planted as Simon's. So, tank size, jungle planting, numbers, and perhaps a community of larger fish could be the answer for my remaining gang, and all things that I can do something about.  :)
At one point recently I did consider asking the store if they would be prepared to take my remaining fish back, then I could start a new tank with some more peaceful inhabitants. However, having previously purchased them I feel that I have a responsibility to do as much as I can to make them happy before admitting defeat. So I've got next week off work to do fishy stuff like get my mudskippers (  :D ), move bn & bea to their larger tank ( :D ), and try to do something to make the remaining tiger barbs as happy as possible (not sure which emoticon covers the bum-clenching anxiety of getting it wrong again).

Offline Matt

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2017, 09:12:18 AM »
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 :-\

Offline Richard W

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Re: Tiger barbs
« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2017, 07:04:43 AM »
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My tanks are very heavily planted but it didn't make any difference, the most aggressive tiger barbs still chased the others continuously. It may be down to numbers of males and females, but you can't tell the difference until they grow. Perhaps you need a larger space, the tank I had mine in is only 80cms/120 litres.
Ruby barbs also had nipping problems with the males, but the females are fine.

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