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Monday, September 5th
Ph – 6.9
Nitrates – 9.0
Nitrites – 0.0
Ammonia – 0.0
Temperature – 76º F

My second tiger barb in 2 days died tonight. the parametres seem to be fine. i think the reason that they died is that they took such a beating from the other, more dominant, tiger barbs. the two that died were the only 2 with their fins all nipped and torn. before they died, they would hang around the top and occassionally swim all lop-sided, but other times they seemed fine.

i spotted no signs of ich or any other diseases. the only other fish that seems stressed at all would be the krib, but she's only healing from an injury she sustained to the eye... still seems very healthy.

i'm assuming that this is why they died, but any other theories would be helpful, incase there's something i have to fix.

fish remaining: 2 regular tiger barbs (m&f)
2 albino tiger barbs (m&f)
1 krib (f)

Tiger barbs are schooling fish, and yes that's most likely why yours died. They were picked to death because you had too few of the same kind in a school. Pick one or the other, albino or regular and get at least 10 of them. IME it's preferable with fish that are somewhat nippy to get them all @once. I've had a zebra danio that picked on any other zebra that was added to the tank, and have had one white skirt tetra that was teased by everyone that was added for schooling. I've also had a green tiger barb and a regular tiger barb fight it out. That taught me to never accept a stocked tank from someone who had no clue what they were doing !
If you have the tank space for both schools if tiger barbs (10-12 minimum in each) then go with that, but if you only have room for 12 pick one or the other and get those.

^_^[hr width='40%']"So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time...
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right
[link=I hope]http://babelfish.qwertydigital.com/" style="COLOR: #EB4288[/link] you had the time of your life"

The first time I kept tiger barbs I lost 3 of 6 and the remaining three lived out their natural term, so it cant be assumed that tiger barbs always die because of being in too small a group, its possible that its the group dynamic that is actually more important and the size and number of males in proportion to the females you have. Specimens that die off in small groups are likely to be smaller suboordinate males. Obviously the problem is solved by having many more fish, but sometimes I think its a case of having too many males.