Fish Mating And Spawning Behavior?

[justasking]

I have 3 tinfoil barbs in a small outdoor pond. I've noticed recently during feeding time (don't know what they do other times cause I can't see them) that while circling for the food they will brush up against each others rear ends. They sort of push their tails into each other for a second. So maybe this is a dumb question, but is that spawning/breeding behavior? If so, I'm confused because they are only 5.5 inches and I've only had them a few months. I've read in the past that tinfoil barbs can't breed until they are 2 years old. I've also heard they don't breed in captivity because they need extremely large spaces with strong water currents and my pond is only 220 gallons and has bubbling water but hardly strong water currents. Is this some other sort of behavior? It doesn't seem aggressive to me.

 

[snake007]

I thought all barbs spawn by the female lays eggs and the male fertilizes them?

 

[MBOU]

Niiiice, would love to be in a country warm enough to keep tropical fish outside!

What country are you in?

It does sound like spawning behaviour to me! They are probably just going through the motions as they come up to breeding age, they can still go through spawning behaviours without producing and eggs etc

 

[justasking]

MBOU,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it is nice living in a warm climate. I reside in Florida, USA. It's warm enough here for tropical fish most of the time but we get a few cold nights that require a pond heater or even a thermal blanket since I have tropicals. I put a lot of work into the pond to keep it at a near constant 78 degrees for my fish. I sure hope you are right that this could be spawning behavior. I think they are too young to produce any eggs right now but if I were to get tinfoil babies in the pond one day that would be really awesome!

If I could send you some of our warm weather, I surely would