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Ok, I've got a bit of a hard one on my hands here. In my 10 gallon tank one tiger barb just uncharacteristicaly killed another, then started harassing everything else in the tank. So I moved him to my 33 which has more aggressive fish. He got in a fight with the two rams but that settled quickly, however he's taken to terrorising and harassing everything else in the tank. My question is would it be better to do something like pass this $2 plague on, or just euth it?

Tiger barbs are schooling...if you said that he killed one and there's only one left, then it's not uncharastic that it attacked the other. It's not a question of fish ethics, it's a question if irresponsible human ethics.

If you don't want a proper school of barbs then return or exchange it @your lfs. Otherwise they should be kept in a school of 6 or more.

^_^

Either get 6-8 more tiger barbs or take it back to the fish store so that it can be in a true school. That way, it'll feel most comfortable and it won't be as aggressive...

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

If I were you, I'd return the tiger barb, and add more gold barbs or cardinal tetras. You should get at least six of each of those before you go adding another school of fish.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Ah, so it is the numbers causing this, I didn't think they'de act this way given how peacefull both tiger barbs have been previously.

In defence of my character maybe I should tell the whole story so I don't look like some sort of monster?

Basicaly what happened is my family brought home these barbs on two seperate occasions without telling me they were going to ]:| . I told them that they were schooling fish, that other should be kept with them, and so on, but they insisted that they'de be fine. So now its been a while and things aren't going right because of the tiger barb incident, and my dad is sugesting euthanising the lone barb. I posted this thread to see if I could find out if I was missing a bit of information like the bit that babel gave in the first reply.

By the way, cardinals are fine, they school with my other neons perfectly, and actualy tend to be the more peacefull of the group.

And on a seperate note, how do you tell family members to stop trying to sound experienced on what they don't understand? I'm sorta left doing most of the maintainance on a fish tank thats technicaly the whole families, and my parents keep pulling the, "it's the families tank, don't worry, our decisions won't cause problems" thing

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-08-13 21:37][/span]

And on a seperate note, how do you tell family members to stop trying to sound experienced on what they don't understand? I'm sorta left doing most of the maintainance on a fish tank thats technicaly the whole families, and my parents keep pulling the, "it's the families tank, don't worry, our decisions won't cause problems" thing

I find it impossible...GL]

I would have any *know it all* (cough) member of your family take the Fish Profiles practice quiz, and depending on how they do, it may or may not be a humbling experience!

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

And on a seperate note, how do you tell family members to stop trying to sound experienced on what they don't understand? I'm sorta left doing most of the maintainance on a fish tank thats technicaly the whole families, and my parents keep pulling the, "it's the families tank, don't worry, our decisions won't cause problems" thing.

I've had this problem a lot and it's only been two months since the aquarium even came up.

"Goldfish can go in bowls! Person X that I know did it for years!" (I later found out that the longest-living fish lasted for "almost" two years. Yeah, out of their lifespan of twenty or better!)

"We don't need a 20 or 30 gallon tank, a 10 will do."

"You don't need to do water changes. The last time we had a fish tank we didn't do water changes."

"Are you SURE that heater is submersible?" ]:|

My response has been, in general, to insist on total ownership, control, and responsibility for the tank and all its inhabitants. This requires both your money and their respect; if you're lacking in either you're probably not going to get very far.

Barring that, since you're the principal maintainer, you may want to suggest that the person who's doing the work should be responsible for the decisions as a matter of fairness. I have no idea if you're prepared for the sheer masses of patience that will be required for that conversation.

Or you could give up. Hopefully it'll only be two or three more dead fish before the rest of your family stops trying to wish problems out of existence. Sad for the fish, but this is probably the only real option you have.

Silverlight - those quotes sound like my customers! It's all too common and I applaud the occasional person who agrees with experience and gets platies in trios and keeps bala sharks out of their 10-gallon tanks! Unfortunately, they're a rare and dying breed...

Veteric, you need to study your fish stuff and randomly spout off information about fish, including but not limited to: The nitrogen cycle, scientific names, the perils of plenum, compact flourescent lighting, phosphates, spawning agression, sumps, and accurate fish sizes and bioloads. It works in my family - nobody in my house will challenge my fish knowledge! And then they will hopefully back off on getting tiger barbs one at a time after you tell them that tiger barbs are nice fish, but need to be kept in groups of at least five or they'll go haywire like the one you mentioned in your original post. It's just the way they are. If they kept a dog in a sheep pen with no training/interaction with people or other dogs, wouldn't they expect the dog to eventually start attacking the sheep?

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lol superloin, i could do that all day, spent lots of time reading, and it wouldn't help. My dad knows how to keep fish decently, he's done it longer then i have, he just doesn't seem to know as much, and he's not very cautious. My mom is oblivious to reason, its all about my little bro's tank, no matter how much attention it gets she says its ignored and no matter what i say she thinks i'm trying to screw the tank up hehe.