Pale Tiger Barbs – and dying pants…?
Hi Guys
I’ve recently purchased 5 tiger barbs to go into a 20 gallon aquarium. It’s heavily planted with a sand substrate.
At first my Tiger Barbs seemed quite perky but now they seem to be hiding more towards the back. They also seem quite pale and their stripes are faded. However this colour returns when i feed them/the lights turn out in the evening – and they also get more purky then. Do you think they are ok? Is this normal?
Also quite a few of my plants (esp the red ones) are dying off already (had them around a fortnight) do you think this was because there are no nutrients in the sand – what can i do about this (buy hardier plants??) Do you think that this explains why the barbs are pale (perhaps the water has more toxins in it) I did a water change and this didn’t seem to make much difference…
Any advice or tips on how to keep my barbs happy would be appreciated
Many thanks!
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First off, Tiger Barbs need at least a 30 gallon aquarium. They would do much better if they had a larger aquarium. The stress on them becuase of having such a small aquarium is likely to cause color paleness.
I suggest buying Seachem Flourish for your plants. It will help them perk up and stop dying. It contains all the nutrients that plants need.
The Tiger Barb needs to be fed a variety of foods including vegetables as well as meaty foods. Feed a quality flake food as well as live and frozen foods such as brine shrimp and bloodworms.
i have 1 orange tiger barb in a 350 gallon jewel tank with many other fish i only buy plastic plants now and never had any problems with any of my fish the tiger barb will perk up after lights are out also with tiger barbs they like to hide away in plants mine is now bigger than a 50 pence piece and happy i would get plastic plants/black sand and stones for them u will see the difference but this is only my opinion hope this helps u out and good luck
i have 10tiger barbs in a 75gal tank and they are super happy. did you do the fishless nitrogen cycle before adding them to your tank? if you did then do you know your water chemistry? you might have a spike of ammonia. the water change probably helped but you should add some stress coat and that might help them.
maybe internal parasites?
there is so many things that could be wrong with them.
about them getting pale-don’t worry about it cuz it’s normal. usually they get look pale as soon as i turn the lights on in the tank but after like 5mins they go back to their bright color. IF they were always pale then this is a sign of stress.
do you have any other fish in that tank?