tiger barbs

[mike5531]

i had 6 tiger barbs in my 30g when they were babies when they became adults they decided to attack my big angel fish and killed it so i removed them to stop them attacking my other angels. but now my angels are in another tank and i would like to put my barbs back into the 30g but i have 4 golden gourami in there would the barbs attack them?

 

[sylvia]

Three-spot gouramies have long ventral 'feelers' which makes them prone to having these fins nipped off by nippy fish like tiger barbs. There is a chance that if you put the barbs in and add 3-4 new barbs in with them at the same time, they won't immediately go for the gouramies and they'll all settle down together and get along. A bigger school also generaly disperses aggression within the shoal so as to reduce nipping of other species. However, gold gouramies get to 5-6" and barbs to 2.5" or so and 9-10 tigers with 4 gouramies would be quite heavy stocking for a 30 gallon.

Adding the 6 barbs to the tank with the 4 gouramies without adding more barbs is probably just asking for trouble and the fins of your gouramies will soon be nipped off which can lead to infection (though they do usualy grow back) and subsequently death.

I'd also like to warn you that, unless you have 3 females and 1 male, the 4 gold gouramies might end up killing each other once full grown. Males won't usualy tolerate each other at all once they start getting realy territorial. I'd also reccomend adding a lot of floating plants and tall rooted plants to this tank if you plan to keep more than one adult gold in there.

 

[ccg]

I would try it. I have had tiger barbs for sometime now, I started with a pair and slowly moved my numbers up to 7, and they are pretty calm and don't nip anyone.

Give it a try, you can always move them out as easy as you put them in there.

 

[Grouchy]

I know I've posted a similar question about putting tiger barbs in with a pearl gouramis. I'm not sure if this will apply to your case but the pattern of behavior for tiger barbs goes sorta like this for me:

the younger barbs, maybe around a year old or so, are more prone to nip.
there is usually one or two bad apple in the group
once the bad apple starts nipping most of the others start following

In the past, I isolated the "bad apple" and then reinserted him into the group - zero problems since then. My current tank has one that I know of, perhaps two. I'm thinking about isolating them for a while then reintroducing again because the rest of the group really doesn't bother other tank inhabitants.

If you don't have the time or patience consider returning the problem fish to the LPS.

Gouramis and tiger barbs share the same environment but even with a 50 or 100 gallon tank there probably won't be enough space. It might be best just to have a dedicated tiger barb tank.

Disclaimer: your situation might differ.

 

[Lateral Line]

I would not put Tiger Barbs in with anything that has trailing fins. Most barbs are totally harmless, but a trailing fin to a Tiger Barb is just to much temptation.