Cherry Barbs

[NeonTetraStarters]

I want cherry barbs for my 40 gallon cycled fish tank. Is it okay to house these fish with 6 cherry barbs:bushy nose pleco, glowlight tetras, and cardinal tetras? Should I switch any of these fish with another?

 

[KittyKat]

That should work, assuming you are planning to get 6-10 each of the barbs and each tetra species. I would personally prefer to stick to only one schooling fish and have 15-20 of them in a tank that size, I feel that single schools look better and are more interesting to watch.

 

[simonas]

I recently bought some cherry barbs and I;m enjoying them, they are lovely fish. I have mine in cooler than tropical water, I understood they preferred that whearas cardinals prefer warmer water as I understand it

 

[Skins]

I have a group of six and find most of the time they prefer not to be in their shoal. They do have great colour though.

Keith.

 

[CletePurcel]

I have a group of six and find most of the time they prefer not to be in their shoal. They do have great colour though.

Keith.

Same here. The males have fantastic colouring, but they don't shoal very much. They like chasing each other around though.

 

[KittyKat]

I have a group of six and find most of the time they prefer not to be in their shoal. They do have great colour though.

Same here. The males have fantastic colouring, but they don't shoal very much. They like chasing each other around though.

They're quite large fish, bulky fish, right? (At least compared to a same length cardinal, for example.) It could be that it would only be possible to see them swimming in a "school" (or more likely, roughly in the same area of the aquarium) only in something which is say 500 litres or larger just because they may like some personal space. Also having a larger "predator", which is not large enough to eat the barbs, but large enough to worry them would probably make them swim closer together.

 

[CletePurcel]

I have a group of six and find most of the time they prefer not to be in their shoal. They do have great colour though.

Same here. The males have fantastic colouring, but they don't shoal very much. They like chasing each other around though.

They're quite large fish, bulky fish, right? (At least compared to a same length cardinal, for example.) It could be that it would only be possible to see them swimming in a "school" (or more likely, roughly in the same area of the aquarium) only in something which is say 500 litres or larger just because they may like some personal space. Also having a larger "predator", which is not large enough to eat the barbs, but large enough to worry them would probably make them swim closer together.

Yes you are right. They are reasonably big (bigger than neons/cardinals). I only have them in a 100 litre tank reasonably well planted and no predators/big fish. They do shoal sometimes (especially at feeding time and especially the females). The males seem to do most of the chasing. They are nice fish and I really like them.