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I am looking at adding a shoal of serpaes to my 20g once I abolish the Ich once and for all. I currently have a shoal of 6 Tiger Barbs in the tank now. For everything I have read, these guys ought to make excellent tank mates as the Serpaes are just about as feisty as the Tigers.

Is there anything I need to know before building a shoal of Serpaes? I was planning to pick them up a couple at a time so avoid a mini-cycle due to bio overload.

Since this will make for mamximum bio-load in a 20 gal, should I think about maybe adding an air stone or something to increase oxygenation just a bit? I currently have an AquaClear HOB Filter adn that's it.

Thanks

I say it's too many fish. The barbs near 3" each. At even just 5 of them instead of the usual 6 I'd suggest for a proper school they have completely used up the midlevel of the tank and have pretty much stocked it. Personaly I would most definitely not add another school of fish. They probably won't have enough space and in that cramped of a tank the tiger will probably take them out unless you get something bigger than the tigers. Which of course wouldn't fit at all then. About all you can get away with is some type of bottomfeeder but that would be tricky to mix with tigers in a small tank. Anything that can withstand the tigers is likely to be too big. A Bristlenose is a possibility although some species do get a bit large for that size tank. That's why everyone was telling you that it would be hard to find tankmates for a small tank with tiger barbs. There are very few fish that will be happy or possibly even survive in that tank. You may be stuck with a species tank that only contains tiger barbs.