Cherry Barb.

[Lollipop567]

Hello I'm just writing to say I recently purchased two cherry barbs and at the fish store they said that they can only be kept in twos or multiples of twos (a light one and a dark) is this correct?
I'm not too bothered if not as long as it's not harming them.

Thanks
Lara

 

[Lateral Line]

I found this on mod queue in the fish index.

Most barbs are shoaling fish. This is not the case with Barbus titteya, (Cherry Barb), they are best kept as a sexed pair, or a trio one male two females. 2 males kept together in a smaller tank may fight.

Has been on the endangered species list since 1988.

 

[ccg]

The dark cherry barbs are the males and the lighter ones are females. It is the males that are the nice red colour, where the females are somewhat dull...

It is recommended that you keep 1 male and several females. Apparently the males can be aggressive towards each other and there is a chance they will fight. As for my experience, when I first bought cherry barbs, I bought 6males and never had any problems with them fighting, I had them for about 3 years. At the time I did not realize I had only males. They were also housed in a 3foot 35 gallon tank with some tiger/gold barbs... Like I said, never had any problems with them. Maybe it was because they had enough space, or maybe because there was so many of them they didn't fight. Not exactly sure why, but they didn't and everything I read says they will.

Your best bet is to get a few females and a male, or if you like the males like I did, get lots of them and see how you make out.

Either way, good luck. They are nice little fish, hope you enjoy them

Colen.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that it is only the amales that fight with each other (not in my case though). Any the females wont fight.

 

[Pixie25]

Does anyone else have blue platies that seem to get stressed very easy compared to any other platy?

I got blue platies in both my tanks and they seem to get upset quite easy when I do water change/clean tank etc. All other platies are great and fine. I have one blue platy still hiding around rocks/plants since yesterdays water change... getting bit concerned for it now as its never been out of sorts for this long but my blue platies in 180 also seem to hide or stay hidden after I done a water change or had to do something to tank.

Water stats are ok apart from nitrite in 180 which i'm sorting out but blues seem ok in there today, just blue in other tank.

id keep multiple females with one male. with a 1 male and 1 female pair the male will constantly chase the female, leaving the poor thing exhausted.

 

[sylvia]

Yep, it's best to keep cherries as trios (1 male, 2 females) but one male with several females is even better if you don't care about their lack of color. Having said that, ccg was right in the assumption that having a large group of males will keep them from fighting and causing serious damage. This is because aggression is then spread amongst them and no single fish gets picked on. However, they are more aggressive if females are also present. Furthermore, only attempt this if you have a bigger tank and, regardless of what youd ecide when it comes to the number of males, if you are keeping a mixed group, always make sure you have more females than males. If you don't all the females will constantly be chased and harassed and the stress may directly or indirectly result in their death.

 

[ccg]

Also, just so you don't forget. I would like to add to what sylvia said....

If you do get more males to spread aggresion then you are better off getting no females, or lots of females. Anything inbetween and they may get picked on and stressed out due to the larger amount of males. Also, in my experience/situation, I had no females, so the males MIGHT have been more aggresive if there were females present - so keep that in mind as well. I would hate to give you bad advice