barb problem

[chris_1127]

a little while back i mentioned that one of my black ruby barbs went into breeding colours and started harassing one of the others pretty badly, persistantly chasing and nipping at his tail fin and anal fin till they were pretty much ragged, and also leaving him with a swollen and reddened eye too. I've had the injured one in a seperate tank while it healed up, and in the time it was out the other barb returned to its normal colouration. However ive got problems reintroducing the one that was injured - i tried putting it back in at the weekend, and the male almost instantly went back to the black and red breeding colours, and relentlessly chasing the other again. I took the one being chased back out to the hospital tank again, and the male soon went back to normal. however i tried again last night and same result - the male went straight back into full colouration and was relentlessly chasing the other one. any suggestions or help here would be appreciated, as the male left the other in a real mess last time.

 

[Lateral Line]

I remember the last thread. I said at the time that males often colour up best and display with other males. How many do you have in all? Does the dominant male chase any of the others? Are the others females?

 

[chris_1127]

theres 6 black rubies in there, with 10 tiger barbs, from what i can tell i suspect 3 of them to be female, there is only the one male that has gone into full breeding colours but i suspect 2 others are also male, including the injured one. although since being attacked the injured one has gone much paler and isnt showing hardly any red around its head. do you think it may be worth perhaps adding another definite male to spread the aggression a bit?
The dominant male will occasionally chase one or two of the other fish, but it seems to be just in passing rather than a definite chase, the dominant one actually seems to hunt down the injured fish though in order to give chase. if he does catch it at a standstill, as well as nipping around its anal fins it also seems to try to rub flanks with the other one.
i wasnt sure whether the injured fish might actually be female, and its mating behaviour that i was witnessing, but had thought probably not given the mess that the injured fish was left in. how much aggression is normally shown to the females during breeding?