Odessa Barbs

[juanveldez]

recently picked up 3 odessa barbs I am sure that they would like to be in a bigger group but the LFS didn't have any more and I wasn't going to get too picky. they are currently acting as dither fish for the FMs in my 55 the question is are they going to be fine on cichlid pellets or am I going to have to start looking around for a flake that will work for my FMs as well remembering that I am picky about what I feed my cichlids.

 

[flyhawk]

how big are the barbs?

well, i think barbs really do like flakes, from my expireince, but if the pellets are small, the barbs may enjoy them!

 

[mikev]

Odessa's eat everything...bloodworms are the best, flakes are taken readily too, but pretty much anything goes. Mine nibble on catfish pellets/wafers once they ate all the floating food.

Make sure you don't have only males...some stores sell males only... My very first Odessa's were three fishes (all that the lfs had) that colored only in my tank and turned out to be all males...that was not pretty. And of course you need more than three, preferably with more females despite them being much less attractive.

hth.

 

[juanveldez]

I got what I think are 2 males and 1 female out of the only three that the LFS had. two of them have the bright red stripe and the other one does not. so far they have been to afraid of getting the big male firemouth angry at them hes the peace keeper of the tank if there is a dispute he comes out and settles it very quickly.

 

[mikev]

I got what I think are 2 males and 1 female out of the only three that the LFS had. two of them have the bright red stripe and the other one does not. so far they have been to afraid of getting the big male firemouth angry at them hes the peace keeper of the tank if there is a dispute he comes out and settles it very quickly.

Bright red stripe -- certain males. The last one may be a suppressed male or a female. Females are yellowish and tbh not very attractive...but you want to get more of them even if you have one now.

 

[juanveldez]

afraid thats not really too much of an option there are already 6 firemouth in the tank, the barbs are dithers to help encourage the FMs to swim around more its a common way to get young new world cichlids to come out more instead of hiding, with the movement in the tank they are encouraged to come out more themselves.