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The other day I bought two Cherry bards from my fish store, eventually I plan to get more. At first (like they were suppose to,) they were swimming around the tank together, making sure they were both in the same place at the same time. Today when I woke up I noticed they were swimming VERY close to eachother, practically side by side, kind of rubbing against eachother. Within the last 2 hours they havn't been swimming around together at all. More recently, the one fish has been chasing the other one around, in an agressive-looking way. When the one fish isnt being chased, he swims in one spot near the bottom, but not in the corner of the tank. I have no experience with how fish mate, but are they spawning or something? lol any opinions would be great.

Shaz

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-08-04 13:56][/span]

Fish of all varieties tend to school in groups of 6 or more. Technically you have a pair not a school so they are unlikely to show the schooling characteristic.

Many barbs will chase each other around, but that is there nature, if you keep them in odd numbers this reduces the chance of you fish becoming stressed as 1 can rest whilst the others chase each other.

Firstly and most importantly are they two males, two females, or one of each?

The males are deep reddish but the females are less vivid, more a beige/brown-red. There is a pic of both sexes on the fishpofiles.com profile.

Well thats the thing, theres 1 male and 1 female. I noticed this a while back, because like you said, the male is a pinkish red, while the female is pretty much brown with a tint of red on her fins.

It sounds like you might need more fish to give the pursued fishie some down time

okie doke ill haev to wait a few mroe days though i set my tnak up last thursday and on Monday i got the 4 fish.. I cant rush the cycle i guess lol but liek they say patience is a virtue with aquariums.

Everything I've read abotu cherry barbs (NB - i don't have any, but I'm getting some soon) suggests to keep one male and two females to divide stress...also to provide plenty of cover if keeping more than one male cos they don't like each other.

Do you think it would be ok if i got like more than 3 of the cherry barbs though froo? I would even it out though, between male and female ratios.

Cherry barbs are very poor schoolers. Also, when schooling fish aren't stressed or afraid (or no big fish around), they won't school. As for the aggression, I agree, add some more cherry barbs after you cycle is over.

Well it seems like for the most part you guys all agree, in a week or so I will get some more cherry barbs

Thanks!