Breeding Tiger Barbs

[tropicalfishlover]

What size do tiger barbs have to be to be ready to have babies or to breed for that matter? I was just wondering because I have a couple of them including a female and they are all just over an inch long.

All help would be appreciated

 

[n3ont3tra]

Well, they need at least a 30g and I think they'd need to be at full length (3 inches) before they'll breed. But I'm not totally sure. Someone may want to confirm.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

As far as i am aware you breed them in a similar way to other barbs or danio's- create a perfect environment for them to encourage them to spawn, and then remove the adult shoal after spawning to prevent them from eating their eggs or fry afterwards. However, i'm not so sure on how successful or easy breeding tiger barbs is in aquariums.
Taken from;

http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile20.html

"Male tiger Barbs are slimmer and more colorful than the females. They breed similar to other Barb species. The breeding tank should have a thin layer or no substrate and a few leafy plants and be as large as possible. Condition the spawners with the best food possible for a few days before transferring them to the breeding tank. They usually will spawn the morning after being introduced to the tank, a partial water change can also induce spawning. The female is the more active partner and will lead in the courtship. After chasing and false matings the pair will spawn in the plants, with the partners coming alongside each other and the male twisting around the female. The eggs are scattered among the plants and they can be quite large in number. Tigers, like most Barbs are spawn eaters and should be removed from the tank right after mating. The transparent eggs will hatch in about 24 hours at a temperature of 75º and the small young must be fed the finest of food like Brine shrimp Nauplii, once a little growth has taken place they are fairly easy to raise."



Breeding fish like tiger barbs is not half as near as certain as breeding livebearing fish like platys and guppys, so you may have to wait a while before your tiger barbs even start to spawn in the tank, let alone see any fry hatch out successfully. And if danio fry are anything to go by in my experience, they are absolutely tiny- its very easy to miss the fry since they lack any particular colour and are very small.
Fry tanks also need a lot of maintanence, mostly due to the fact that feeding small fry can be quite a messy buisness and that small fry need pristine water quality conditions to grow well and survive.
Have you bred any fish before?

 

[tropicalfishlover]

As far as i am aware you breed them in a similar way to other barbs or danio's- create a perfect environment for them to encourage them to spawn, and then remove the adult shoal after spawning to prevent them from eating their eggs or fry afterwards. However, i'm not so sure on how successful or easy breeding tiger barbs is in aquariums.
Taken from;

http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile20.html

"Male tiger Barbs are slimmer and more colorful than the females. They breed similar to other Barb species. The breeding tank should have a thin layer or no substrate and a few leafy plants and be as large as possible. Condition the spawners with the best food possible for a few days before transferring them to the breeding tank. They usually will spawn the morning after being introduced to the tank, a partial water change can also induce spawning. The female is the more active partner and will lead in the courtship. After chasing and false matings the pair will spawn in the plants, with the partners coming alongside each other and the male twisting around the female. The eggs are scattered among the plants and they can be quite large in number. Tigers, like most Barbs are spawn eaters and should be removed from the tank right after mating. The transparent eggs will hatch in about 24 hours at a temperature of 75º and the small young must be fed the finest of food like Brine shrimp Nauplii, once a little growth has taken place they are fairly easy to raise."



Breeding fish like tiger barbs is not half as near as certain as breeding livebearing fish like platys and guppys, so you may have to wait a while before your tiger barbs even start to spawn in the tank, let alone see any fry hatch out successfully. And if danio fry are anything to go by in my experience, they are absolutely tiny- its very easy to miss the fry since they lack any particular colour and are very small.
Fry tanks also need a lot of maintanence, mostly due to the fact that feeding small fry can be quite a messy buisness and that small fry need pristine water quality conditions to grow well and survive.
Have you bred any fish before?

Yes, I have succesfully bred guppies and mollies (not really a great accoplishment). Are the fry of tiger barbs and danios about the same size of guppies or even smaller. When you put the tiger barbs into the breeding tank will they have babies immediatly even if they do not have all of the eggs in them still, because that's what it sounds like in a lot of the websites? I'm still new to all of this because all i've ever bred have been livebearers.

Thank you for all of the info. and help!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yes, I have succesfully bred guppies and mollies (not really a great accoplishment). Are the fry of tiger barbs and danios about the same size of guppies or even smaller. When you put the tiger barbs into the breeding tank will they have babies immediatly even if they do not have all of the eggs in them still, because that's what it sounds like in a lot of the websites? I'm still new to all of this because all i've ever bred have been livebearers.

Thank you for all of the info. and help!

The breeding tank will need to be cycled (check out the beginner sections pinned articles in this link to learn more on the importance of cycling tanks properly and the issues of new tank syndrome http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=88643 ) before you put the tigers in as otherwise it will start to cycle after you put the fish in and any fry born in the tank will probably die due to the unstable water quality conditions. "Cloning" the filters or doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia would be the best. A 30gallon or 3ft long tank would be ideal for the barbs (this is actually the normal minimum size tank for them anyway, but it would also be good as barbs produce a lot of fry and you will need a lot of space to raise them).

They are simply more likely to spawn in a new tank set up though because the clean water quality conditions and temperature change sometimes reflects the conditions that flooding or a large fall of rain would create in the wild after a dry season. This often prompts a lot of egg laying fish to spawn as masses of fresh, new water often creates good conditions for fry to grow up in.
You can re-create these sorts of conditions in a variety of ways in tanks to help prompt all sorts of fish to spawn as many tropical fish come from very seasonal climates where their breeding is prompted by changes in the habitat via wet season type conditions.

The fry of danio's and tigers are definately a lot smaller than guppy fry- they are about half the size and are pretty much see-through. I'm not sure what the average size batch of fry is for tiger barbs, however for danio's it is often well over a hundred (it was around 130 for me). However, you should expect to see a lot of losses in your fry particularly in the early days- it is extremely rare for all of the fry to make it to adulthood, having about 30 or more fry survive is considered very good, and 20+ fry is about average.
Fry from egg laying fish tend not to be as hardy/durable as fry from livebearing fish in my experience, so you must be very careful about water quality and feeding/diet to help increase the chances of as many fry as posible making it to adulthood or just develop healthily and normally .

 

[tropicalfishlover]

[/quote]

The breeding tank will need to be cycled (check out the beginner sections pinned articles in this link to learn more on the importance of cycling tanks properly and the issues of new tank syndrome http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=88643 ) before you put the tigers in as otherwise it will start to cycle after you put the fish in and any fry born in the tank will probably die due to the unstable water quality conditions. "Cloning" the filters or doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia would be the best. A 30gallon or 3ft long tank would be ideal for the barbs (this is actually the normal minimum size tank for them anyway, but it would also be good as barbs produce a lot of fry and you will need a lot of space to raise them).

They are simply more likely to spawn in a new tank set up though because the clean water quality conditions and temperature change sometimes reflects the conditions that flooding or a large fall of rain would create in the wild after a dry season. This often prompts a lot of egg laying fish to spawn as masses of fresh, new water often creates good conditions for fry to grow up in.
You can re-create these sorts of conditions in a variety of ways in tanks to help prompt all sorts of fish to spawn as many tropical fish come from very seasonal climates where their breeding is prompted by changes in the habitat via wet season type conditions.

The fry of danio's and tigers are definately a lot smaller than guppy fry- they are about half the size and are pretty much see-through. I'm not sure what the average size batch of fry is for tiger barbs, however for danio's it is often well over a hundred (it was around 130 for me). However, you should expect to see a lot of losses in your fry particularly in the early days- it is extremely rare for all of the fry to make it to adulthood, having about 30 or more fry survive is considered very good, and 20+ fry is about average.
Fry from egg laying fish tend not to be as hardy/durable as fry from livebearing fish in my experience, so you must be very careful about water quality and feeding/diet to help increase the chances of as many fry as posible making it to adulthood or just develop healthily and normally .
[/quote]


My tiger barbs are "standing on their head" at the bottom of the tank then the next moment they will be just fine. Everything in the tank is just fine.