A Little Green Tiger Barb Trouble

[unwell]

Greetings members of the Aquatic Community.

Before I go to the issue at hand, I would just like to wish everyone a very merry christmas, happy holidays, and a happy and successful new year.

Now, I just recently purchased a pair of green tiger barbs with the intention of mating them. I seperated them, placing the female in one side of a 20 gallon (using a divider, the other side of the divider has a texas cichlid) and the male is in a whole separate tank.

In the first 2 days, the female was doing fine. I decided to make the water softer and have a closer to neutral pH by doing a 50% water change. Because the female had ick, I decided to buy aquarisol. Listening to the instructions, I added 24 drops for 20 gallons and raised the temp. to 85. Before raising it, the temp. was 80 degrees F.

After raising the temp, the female seemed to be hyper ventilating, so I began to fluctuate the temp for 3 days, making it 85 for half the day, then 80 when I was asleep, and then back to 85 in the morning.

Now my female barb does not move or eat anymore. She is just hiding in one spot. I tried to add the male in so she has company, but it made no difference. The food that she did not eat (Oscar grow pellets) grew fuzzy fungus within hours.

I do not know what to do. Please help. I don't want the green female tiger barb to die.

[VoidParadigm]

In my opinion 85 is too high for any of the small common freshwater fish you'd find at the local chain store, such as barbs. Sorry to hear about her, sorry no one's answered sooner, and sorry if she's already gone, but I think all you can do is turn down the heat a bit and wait.

[Deleted User]

I'm sorry about your fish and hope she's doing better now.

Do you know if this is the recommended way to breed tiger barbs? I'm wondering with them being a schooling fish if the separation is causing her to not want to eat and be sick?

[Dave66]

First, welcome to the forum, unwell.

Tiger Barbs, color morph notwithstanding, are schooling fish, meaning at least six, better eight, or more. Also, for successful breeding, the fish need to be conditioned, that is, fed live foods frequently so the female can develop eggs.

You'll have to exercise a good deal of patience for your school to mature and when you see the shape of eggs on a female's sides, isolate her for a day in a thickly planted tank, fine-leaved plants are best, then the next day add two or three lively males. Tiger Barbs are egg scatterers and the eggs are slightly adhesive so will stick to the plants. They usually spawn early in the morning, so you'll need to be on hand to remove the breeders promptly or they will eat the eggs.

Feeding the fry is another matter, and if you PM me I'll explain how.

Oh, and check out my disease primer on the Disease Forum, and you'll see why your Barb got Ich and what to do about it should you have another fish with that disease.

Dave

[annageckos]

When you raised the temp did you increase airation? Higher temps have less oxygen in the water. The cichlid on the other side of the divider could have stressed the barb out to, leading to a better change of getting ich. Like stated already they are schooling fish and need to be kept in groups of at least 6, more is better.

[Wild Turkey]

Dave gave great info, I highly recommend his disease primer, and he has several threads on culturing live foods for this adventure.

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