FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I bought some fish from my fish store the other day and I got a bunch of barbs(for aquarium)and koi(for my pond). I got a few barbs of different types: tigers,albinos,greens,clowns,rosy,black ruby's. The question is about the black ruby barbs, I from personnel experience and articles about them they all look the same at fish stores as they are still young fish and that with age and spawning their colors increase, but in the black ruby tank that I got them from there was a most all black barb with a hint of crimson red color in the tail and face and I can make at slightly a stripe near the tail where the red color starts. The body and fins look more like a tiger barb then the body and fins that of the black ruby barb the tank at the store was marked with two types of barbs one was the black ruby barb and the other was list"XL five striped barb" ?? I never seen that before in any store I gotten fish at so if anyone knows anything about that fish I like to know about it as well, but my main concern is at the black fish I got and paid for as a black ruby barb. Does that sound like a Black Ruby or is a different type of barb? I did ask at the store but they couldn't figure it out that is why I got it at the black ruby price.

Hello Barb_Fan !!

Did a little digging around for ya and got a few links to check out, here is your 5-banded barb
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1943&articleid=2582

The Green tiger barb ( I have seen some personally that were totally black except a tinge of red in the rostral area and in the finns)
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1943&articleid=2481

And last but not least, here are a variety of pics in this link of the black ruby barb
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Puntius+nigrofasciatus&spell=1

it almost sounds like your describing a green tiger barb,
but then there are several variants in the puntius family, a few of them crossbreeding is not a rarity.


P.S. the greens and tiger fare best in groups of 6 or more, spreads out the rowdy behavior and fin-nipping, if ya have the capacity, 9 would be better yet ( 50G + )


Hope any of this may help,
Good luck, hope all goes well


J.

That does sound a bit like a Green Tiger barb. I've kept Tiger barbs for over a year now, one of my favorite species. But, man they are nippy and insane...

Iron was right, keep Tiger barbs in groups of no less than 6 in order to keep them from driving the other tank mates nuts!