Possible Problem

[Carey27]

I was looking for a plan to stock my 30 gallon tank a while back. I originally had a mix of tiger barbs, clowns, balas, plecos & a green/yellow dwarf puffer. After getting some help and adivce on the forums i returned the balas, clowns and a common pleco since they would eventually out grow my tank. When looking for feedback on Tiger Barb tankmates i was advised to bring my total barbs to 7 (apparemtly when theres 7 or more they tend to focus their aggression on each other) prior to adding other fish.

So for the past 2 months I maintained a healthy tank with 7 Tiger Barbs, The puffer and a butterfly pleco (all coexisting nicely). I recieved some recomendations on additional tank mates and chose to go with blue rams. So yesterday I added the rams and the tiger barbs immediately defended their territory. I removed the pack of barbs from the tank to give the rams some time to adjust and settle in and was looking for some advice on how to make this addition of fish as smooth as possible.

Tank is planted with hidding spots but no "caves" I was also thing about moving the drift wood around thing that the barbs might not reecognize the tank and then be less defensive.

Any advice?

 

[fatmarley]

I read somewhere that if you reset the arrangement of your tank before adding new fish, all territory is null and void and the fish begin to stake new rights.

This I imagine could have a good effect and a bad effect.

Might be a good idea to add a few caves to your tank, I bought a ceramic one for $2 and I also bought a plastic pot for a $1...

Just what I have read, not from experience.

 

[Don Trinko]

Tiger barbs are very active and they will nip the fins of slow moving fish. I have some with hatchetfish and serpae tetras and they are fine. (all active fish) I put some cory's in and their fins have been nipped so I moved them. Don T.

 

[Carey27]

I rearranged the driftwood / ornaments and everythings kinda of settled down... We'll see