Tiger Barbs

[Araxen]

I have a school of six Tiger barbs and I just had two of them duke out(their little kissing dance) to determine the King. One of the lost of course and is now hanging out by himself...will he be let back into the school eventually?

 

[millym]

hi
im sure he will, ive had tbs for nearly 4 years & ive found that the balance of power changes very regularly in tiger barb land.....the bullied today is often the boss tommorow! ( unless the loser has something wrong with him - illness etc then it may get picked on more need to watch out for this) occasionally you may get a 'king' who seems to be in his position of power for a longer time but this too seems to end eventually. ive especially noticed this adding a juvenile barb to a group of established tbs..........no the juvenile is not picked on its more the other way round, we've just added a young small green tb ( to replace a sad loss!)who has been a holy terror for about 2 weeks chasing all the other tbs to the point where they only started coming out at moonlight time hiding from the green meanie all day, about a week ago the mean green started having regular 'jousts' with a stripey barb & this week all the barbs are out to play & mean green who lost a couple of fights has calmed right down!
i find tb society fascinating to watch & would love to have a big school of tb's. (no room)

 

[max11180]

I'd second that, the hierachy in a barb tank is forever changing, and it's usually the smaller, younger ones doing the heckling, as millym said.
If you have the tank space, 2 more barbs (or maybe more) might help smooth things out; the more you have, the less victimisation of one barb there is, because the aggression is more spread out . Guess they think "bored of battling that one , lets battle...um....um....that one! "
My current "boss" barb , is a medium sized female albino, which suprises me really, cos it's the 1st, and only female boss barb i've had.