Photographs will be added.... eventually. This will probably take a while.

Tiger barb (Puntigris tetrazona)

Distribution; Originally found in South East Asia, although populations have been observed in South America, Australia and the USA. 

Maximum size; 8-10cm, although this is not often seen. 6cm seems to be a more usual in captivity. 

Water conditions; Adaptable... pH 6.0-8.0 with a hardness between 4 and 10, although they can survive in harder water. Temperature 22-28 degress. 

Description; The natural colour of this fish is a light brown/ cream base with black vertical stripes. All fins show red colouration, while the dorsal and anal fins also contain black. Other colour varieties are commonly available, such as green, albino, jade and glass belly.

These are an active, social species which comes with something of a reputation for aggressiveness, especially towards long finned fish. This seems to be hit and miss, with reports of them also being kept successfully with guppies, angelfish etc being quite common. What seems certain is that keeping tigers in larger groups seems to lessen the more unpleasant behaviour. The idea being that the tigers will be more interested in interacting with each other and establishing their own pecking order.

Breeding; Egg scatterers. Adults need to be separated from their eggs and fry as they will eat them.  I have spawned these myself, although not in large numbers. I suspect my water wasn't soft enough, and was possibly too warm. The fry need infusoria at first, and then newly hatched brine shrimp. Once past the tiny stage, they are easy to rear.

An interesting side note is that the fish we know today as the tiger barb is  possibly the result of unknown hybridisation with other barbs. There are reports online regarding wild caught tigers being less nippy and looking slightly different.  Just to confuse things even more, there are several species known as 'tiger barbs'. Most of which aren't available commonly available in the aquarium trade. The science around them still seems somewhat messy and I have a feeling that there will be more developments around this topic in the next few years. This would probably account for discrepancies in things like 'maximum size' and the varying levels of naughtiness.

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