Rosy Barb

[TeamJ]

Hi, in the last few months I have started my first tropical aquarium and due to bad advice on what fish I could put in my tank I now have two tanks, tiger barbs in one and golden and rosy barbs in the other, I had 2 golden and 2 rosy, everything was going fine and then I noticed that one of the rosy barbs wasn't looking too well, it had lost weight scales missing and one eye missing! i couldn't believe it! so I watched... the other rosy is very aggressive and attacking it,( I didn't think the rosy barbs where aggressive) so I went to the aquarium shop for advice and came out with more golden barbs and 2 more rosy barbs (both male because they said that if I put females in the mix they are likely to be more aggressive)... they told me that there is less aggression when there is more of them because they do better in schools, I have put them in the tank and the aggressive rosy barb is bulling all the rosy's and they are all hiding in the corners, not sure what to do next except take the aggressive one out, but don't have anywhere to put it, also I have a 20 liter tank which now has 7 golden barbs and 4 rosy barb a total of 11 fish, which seems to me to be too many fish for that size tank but the lady at the shop said it would be fine. please any advice would be appreciated... thanks

[Caryl]

Hi TeamJ. I would have said the tiger barbs would be more aggressive but you often get one dominant fish that will bully the others :roll:

I would see if the shop will take the one stroppy rosy barb and then the rest should settle down. Try to provide plenty of hiding spaces and plants for the other fish to hide in.

Barbs are shoaling fish and the more you have the better behaved they usually are. In smaller groups one can bully and dominate the rest :-?

Golden barbs grow a lot bigger than rosy barbs and that is too many for a 20L tank. They need a lot of swimming room. They are probably all right for the moment, if small, but they will grow quite quickly.

What size is your other tank and what fish are in it?

[TeamJ]

Hi Caryl, the other tank is about 36 liters and has 6 tiger barbs and three peppered cat fish and they all seem happy and are doing fine, I will take the aggressive fish to the fish shop tomorrow, and I will get a bigger tank once the fish get a bit bigger... thanks for the advice I think the people at the shop try and get you to keep buying fish so they don't always tell you the right thing.

[AMAZONIAN]

Rosy Barbs are not aggressive.

If you have more than 3 Tiger Barbs in a school they also are not aggressive to other fish, normally, as they spend ALL their time chasing each other.

Golden Barbs, (in general,) are not aggressive either but I have stopped breeding them as I had noticed some aggression in the offspring of those parents in a couple of spawnings; although the parents were housed in tanks which contained Angel Fish.

That also goes against what the books say.

DONT PUT BARBS with "THREAD FINNED FISH".

I think your problem mainly lies in the size of the tank/s they are in, and the sizes of the fish.