Sick Tiger Barb?

Having observed the past few days, I can now see this is nothing sinister, just "submissive" behaviour.
One of the Barbs in the shoal is bullying the others mercilessly. One of them has taken to hiding in the weeds to avoid this and occasionally there are others who take a "time out" with him.
I guess if the bullying continues, I'll have to remove the "bad guy". Or does that just compound the issue by allowing the "second-in-command" to get a promotion?

(Started this before Sue's post, so some overlap)

How many Tigers do you have? It's generally considered that 8 or more is best as then the aggression is spread out more widely among the group. Taking one out might make the situation worse.

Five days ago I bought 6 Ruby Barbs. Their behaviour is pretty similar to Tigers. When I bought them they were "pale and wan" looking like washed out Tigers, not likely to attract the casual buyer. But within a couple of hours in my tank, transformation started. The sexes immediately became clear, which was by no means obvious at the shop. The males have become redder and redder and are in an almost continuous state of competition. One seems to have become dominant and doesn't let any of the others into a particular small area of the tank which they seem to regard as "prime real estate". There's a fair amount of chasing and a bit of nipping, but the tank is so densely planted that anybody who wants to get away can hide very quickly. Once the loser disappears from sight, the dominant one stops chasing, "job done" from his point of view. Of course, the females completely ignore all this, just spending their time looking for food.

I have one Tiger in the same tank, a fish which I didn't buy but came with a used tank. I'm planning to add more to make a shoal of 8 or 9. It will be interesting to see how the two barb species get on. If they don't, I have the capacity to separate them in different tanks.

A few more won't do any harm. But if you do get more, they'll have to re-establish the pecking order to include the new fish so you may see more aggression for a few days until they've worked it out.