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I happened to go to my LFS yesterday and they happened to have a bunch of Odessa Barbs. They are absolutely beautiful, but didn't know the difference between the sexes as I had never heard of these barbs before. I ended up with 4 males I will be going back today to see if they have females or if they can even get females.

I've been looking all over the web on info on them, but it's so varied. If anyone here has experience in owning them I would love to know how you like them, what tank mates you have with them, what kind of illnesses I should keep an eye out for. Anything would be appreciated.

Oh and right now I have:

4 Odessa barbs, soon to get 2 more
2 glowlight tetras, can't ever to keep more than my two alive
2 guppies
2 or 3 kuli loaches, Have 2 for sure just never see #3

Hi,
This might help:

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/barbs/odessabarb.php

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Love Odessas. Haven't had any for a while, but the ones I had bred shortly before moving them to a different tank, so one of the young survived and I raised him to adulthood. I wrote the profile here: http://fishprofiles.com/profiles/freshwater/Cyprinids/Puntius_ticto_/ They're good community fish - not nippy or agressive - do well with other small fish as well as larger community fish: I've had them with danios, kribs, synodontis eupterus, etc.

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Thank you Frank. That helped a good bit as I had read somewhere else that only the males had the red-brown band, and this site said they both do. I have also noticed they like nibbling on plants.

I've never seen a female odessa with the red band. Additionally, the males have yellow fins, while the female's are orange.

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I'm going back tomorrow and looking to see if they have females. All the ones I have are males. Hopefully I'll be able to spot some females. They're very strange fish. They pick stuff on the intake to my filter and chomp away at it..lol

Most barbs love some greens in their diet, try feeding them some peas Zeketaz, that might keep them from nibbling too many of your plants.

I just use peas from the freezer, let them defrost then pop them out of their skins and drop the two halves into the tank. Just feed a few at a time till they start to recognize them. If they're like my barbs (gold atm) they'll play tug of war with the pieces

^_^

Well all the females were sold out but the owner of the store said he would order some females in for me

And thank you superlion and babelfish for your help as well.

I think the Odessas eat snails. I had a bunch of little snails and now I don't see a one. Before I used to see them all in my gravel and on the sides of the tank but now nothing

Barbs will, usually I crush the shell of the pond snails and let the barbs go at them. Never really had that much of a problem with problem snails though. Most of my tanks have only had MTS in them.

Have some pond snails in the library tank now, sometimes I'll pull a few out to feed to the asian tank(barbs, raspboras and loaches).

^_^