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Profile says it eats small fish....I dont think this is a herbivor.

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Nah,

Quite a few fish will eat other small fish, even when the fish is mainly herbivore. This in itself would not be enough to qualify the fish as an omnivore as its food should be plant based.

It is like attempting to call a cow that once in a while swallows a fly a carnivore (just kidding).

Internet research shows that all sites I found consider this fish an herbivore.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Neutral

Approve.

Cant be a herbivore if it can eat whole fish, a herbivore wouldnt do this - its a long way from accidental ingestion! It is not a herbivore, its an omnivore with leanings to herbivory, and the correct diet should reflect that preference.

To be correct it should be described as an omnivore, and its leanings to herbivory should be described in the diet field with additional text. Dont forget, if one of these fish turns round and eats a cagemate, then its our fault for saying its a herbivore! I think all such descriptions should be kept exact. This profile does need additional text.

Id move to keep gobys new edit, and ill do a correct balance diet info later if no-one else does.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

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I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

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Let me make one last attempt to explain my reasoning behind my rejection, as I believe you got the facts backwards"

LHG - you know I respect your opinion very much, but I don't think you are on in this case. You say:

"To be correct it should be described as an omnivore, and its leanings to herbivory should be described in the diet field with additional text."

This is really backwards. This fish is not leaning to herbivory, but leaning to omnivory. All sources describe this fish as an herbivore, that's a main categorization that I believe should only be overwritten once the Taxonomy in itself is changed.

One link to a classification, this time from http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=4765:

With the main quote being: "Largely herbivorous, consuming aquatic macrophytes and submerged land plants, as well as filamentous algae and occasionally insects (Ref. 12693). Also feeds on small fishes (Ref. 12693), worms and crustaceans (Ref. 7020)."

Yes, one should make mention of the fact that this fish eats other things than herbs (lol, you know what I mean), but the way it is suggested here is just not right, at least not in my opinion. If looked into the subject on a larger scale, I am most certain that it would eliminate almost any fish from being classified as herbivore.

So, I made my peace, now vote

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I agree that most fish are omnivores technically, probably 99% or so, and that a lot of this stuff is lines in the sand, but by scientific definition, a fish that supplements it diet by taking on significant amounts of animal protien by choice cannot categorically be called a herbivore. This is the equivalent of a cow that eats rabbits! Id let it fly if it was just a bit of scavenging or the occassional bloodworm or fish eggs like plecs might do, this is equivalent to the cows incidental ingestion of thousands of bugs on the grass every year. Having the ability to take out other fish and eat them is definately a hunting behaviour, any fish with that ability has to go into the omnivore category , surely? I mean with dollars and stuff, they are supposed to be herbivorous, but they could reallty be considered omnivores too, they can fin nip to supplement the diet, and will eat the occsssional bit of dead flesh or a wormy food, and they certainly will eat fish food intended for omnivores. What they dont usually do though, is outright hunt.Plecs too will eat flesh often, but they dont take other fish out, so im content to leave them as a herbivore or wood eater. Thats where I think the line in the sand is for me.

When anything actively pulls off a well calculated attack with the intention to kill and consume, even if fish is only 5 % or less of the diet, thats what I call an omnivore. The accuracy of a healthy feeding regime should be written in detail certainly , so that people are never misled, but ultimately if a fish is capable of hunting, people should know about it in order to protect their other fish. Well theres two differing opinions , vote at will .

GobyFan2007,

You sure sparked an intersting conversation with your suggestion

Anyway - LHG - Very good arguments, and you pretty much would pull me on your side of how to view this issue, if it wouldn't be for one thing (but I don't know too much about it):

- Tinfoil Barbs are known to mankind for quite a while, like about 150 years
- I don't know for how long already, but this fish is classified as an herbivore, and from what I can tell there is no official discussion going on that indicates a re-classification (except for us right now )
- I question that we have the proper knowledge (I for sure don't) to perform such a re-qualification if the field seems to pretty much have made up their mind in what group this fish would fall

I have no problem with mentioning the tendency of this fish to omnivory, but re-classification in our rights seems a little to daring to me. If anyone strongly believes in this fish being an omnivore, and anyone has any good point in presenting this case, why has the Taxonomy not changed?

Granted, I am not hung up on this topic enough to spend hours of research on the Tinfoil Barb just to find out about its classification history, but the topic of us overwriting Taxonomy values is just to intriguing to let it go.



Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

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i have had mine on a shrimp only diet and its got to be around 15" or so and i have had other mix and only herbovior diet and they got around 13" long so i thnk they should make the change.