Substitute For Green Tiger Barb. Suggestions Svp

We've started looking for fish we'd like to stock the fluval 200 roma tank we bought just before xmas. I really loved the look of green tiger barbs but when I got home and looked them up they'd be completely unsuitable for our water parameters; liquid rock tap water, nitrate 40ppm from tap (it drops to 20 in my heavily planted tank) ph 7.8 I've been slowly creating a list of fish that would be happy with our water but have yet to find anything as stunning as the GTBs.

I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions?

I'm not sure why the tigers would be so unsuitable, they're all captive bred of course, being an artificially created colour form, and very tolerant of water conditions.

It could be, but will depend to a certain extent on the type of fish. What is more important is how many generations of the fish have been bred in captivity. In the case of common species such as tiger barbs, that will be hundreds or even thousands of generations. During that time, they will have been exposed to a wide range of different water conditions and only those which have a wide tolerance will survive and go on to breed and so pass this tolerance on to future generations. In a way, the breeders are speeding up natural selection and "survival of the fittest" is the result, in this case "fittest" corresponding to most tolerant of water parameters.

By slowly changing the water conditions a fish is in, one can to a limited extent increase its tolerance to water different from what it is accustomed to. However, a fish which really needs soft water, for example, will only tolerate relatively slight changes. It's not in its genes to go beyond a certain point. In the 18th century, people built "gardens of acclimatisation" where they believed that tropical plants could be slowly "hardened off" until they could survive in European climates. They failed, of course, it's what's in the genes that counts.

Longevity has nothing to do with it, perhaps I haven't explained very well, but can't think how else to do so.

If a species of fish just doesn't have the physiology to cope with particular water, no matter how slowly the conditions are changed the conditions will eventually become too much for it. It's the same as if we were to put you in a room and slowly lower the temperature you would eventually die, no matter how slowly the change was made. On the other hand, if we put a thousand people in the same situation, some would last longer than others. If only those who survived went on to have children, and the same process repeated with those children, generation after generation, you would eventually end up with people who had rather more tolerance to cold than those you started with, although there would be a limit how far you could go.

If you can find fish which really have been bred locally in the same water that you have, then they should be OK in yours, but the vast majority of fish come to us from south-east Asia and very few are bred here. If your local shop has the same water as you, and the fish have been OK there for several weeks, then there is a good chance they will be fine in your tank. Most fish are more resilient than they are given credit for, unless you want to breed them, when you  might need conditions closer to their ideal.

Sorry for hi-jacking your post Fiona, hope you find something suitable, i'm in a hard water area and Cichlids seem very popular here, i don't know a lot about them but i was put off them for some reason, not sure if they are aggressive or just dissagreeable and have to be kept as single species? i'm sure if i'm wrong Richard will correct me  Thanks Richard for full explantion 

As we're moving the glass fish and glowlight tetras to the big tank as soon as it's cycled cichlids are not an option then I guess.

The temp range needed for the tetras wouldn't be good for the green tiger barbs either come to that. Ideally I'd really like to have 2 largish fish, maybe gouramis or rainbowfish and 3-4 shoals of smaller fish. Back to the drawing board I guess.

and you weren't hijacking AM I was wondering about the territoriality too 

I expect all shops use their tap water for all or most of their tanks, it would be prohibitively expensive to use anything else. If your shop successfully keeps all of its fish in the same water as yours, then any of them should be OK in your tank.

I've said it before but I'll say it again, people are far too worried about the hardness and pH of their water, the vast majority of today's "farmed" fish will do perfectly well in most water, it's only some of the wild caught fish, which are mainly the rare and expensive ones, that are likely to have problems.

I bet your house has everything colour coordinated 

If you really like the green tiger barbs I honestly think they'd be fine, they are no different from other tigers in requirements and should be OK up to pH 8.5, as the profile says. And if they are looking healthy in the shop no reason to worry. It's the advantage of getting things locally rather than traveling too far where the fish may be kept in very different water.

Thank you Richard, this is probably what you were trying to explain to me in another thread, that if my Lfs have the fish in my water perameters then i can risk them in mine?. Oh and Fiona while i was waiting 51 days for my other tank to cycle i will confess to cutting out pics of fish i wanted and blue tacking them onto front of tank  (i did want to colour co ordinate mine lol)

Thank god I'm not alone AM!  It seems to me a lot of fish will 'survive' comfortably outside their comfort zone, the specialist requirements seem to be about breeding which is something I don't want to do...yet