fin nippers, are they naturally, or just not happy???

[Magnum Man]

"barbs" are often listed as fin nippers... I'm thinking they get a bad rap... maybe Tiger Barbs, but I have seen even the tigers in tanks, where they aren't nipping any fins...
I was a little worried as I set up mixed barb tank, because including in that tank, is a pretty large shoal of long fin bronze aeneus Cory's, a small shoal of long fin Rosy Barbs, and a couple long fin Green Dragon Plecos... so far I'm not witnessing any fin nipping mostly these are larger varieties, that prefer cooler water, no smaller barb varieties, no warmer water species, and it's working so far... the tank is pretty much fully stocked, though I may add a couple filament barbs, if / when they become available...

do we think only the smaller, or warmer water fish are nippers, or perhaps fish that are really cooler water fish, put in a tank at tropical temps??? or did I just get lucky at choosing varieties???

 

[emeraldking]

fin nippers, are they naturally, or just not happy???​

For a number of them, I think both...

 

[jaylach]

Nipping can be natural or stress related. In some cases the nipper is not actually being aggressive especially when the victim has long fins. Sometimes the long fins are not seen as another fish but food. Just my opinion.

 

[Innesfan]

Leaving Tiger Barbs out of the equation for a moment, I've not had an issue with the other barbs I keep and have kept in the genera Pethia, Barbodes, Oliotius etc. I think tetras are more of an issue when it comes to fin-nipping, especially the rhomboid-shaped tets such as Serpae, Black Tetras etc.

That said, I also think it depends on the victims. If you have a long-finned Betta or Veiltail Angel in with some of these species, the flowing fins might be just too tempting. My cousin had a school of neons nibble away at a Veiltail Angel until he separated them.

As for Tiger Barbs, P. tetrazona*, it goes beyond fin-nipping. You need to have a lot of them, more than a dozen, to divert their attention and bad intentions away from other species. Even with a large group of them, you often times wind up with one last-man-standing who has one-by-one knockled off the others. And yet their close, near-look-alike relative, P. partipentazona, is a lovely and perfectly unproblematic species.

*The well-known Tiger Barb of the aquarium does not match any of the taxonomic descriptions for the 5 known species of Puntigrus. Whether this means it is a hybrid, or the result of genetic mutation due to the enormous amount of farming to which it has been subjected--or it is even perhaps an undescribed species-- it is interesting to note that none of the wild forms in the genus seem to share the bad habits of the aquarium form we know as the Tiger Barb.

 

[GaryE]

Nipping barbs are communicating. The other fish don't speak their language, but they keep trying. They tear each other up even in large groups, and are an aggressive group. That said, like @Innesfan , I've found nippers to be a tiny number of species.

Most barbs don't nip much though, if at all. It's a stereotype that has developed with tiger barbs and rosys, but even rosys haven't always nipped here. They annoy other fish. If they were people, they'd be airline customer service in Philadelphia or Newark, or fighting drunks just before closing time. It's just their way.

90% of the barbs I've kept never nip anything except food.

A lot of fish got very bad reputations in the early days of the hobby, before silicone. Tanks tended to be small, and since nippy barbs are hardy, they were more popular than most. They are also like speed freaks for their energy, and in small tanks, things went south very quickly. The technology and the tanks have changed, but the reputation lingers on, repeated like beef heart recipes.