The tiger barb fish offers impressive coloration and beautiful schooling behavior. More than any other cyprinid species, tiger barbs can provide fishkeepers with years of beauty and entertainment with very little labor input. These tough, hardy fish can thrive in a large aquarium if they are kept in suitably large schools.
If you are interested in this species, know these 10 interesting facts about tiger barbs.
1. Tiger barbs have a strong need to be in large groups. They are highly social and will only thrive when kept in groups of eight or more.
2. A school of tiger barb fish will develop a pecking order, similar to a pack of wolves or a pod of dolphins. If you learn to discern the differences between your tiger barbs, you will see that they eat in the exact same order every time.
3. The tiger barb looks very similar to its two closest relatives, the black ruby barb and the five-banded barb. It will willingly interbreed with most other barb species.
4. Selective breeding has produced many interesting varieties of tiger barb, including long-finned, albino, golden, rosy, red and green strains. These varieties can all interbreed with one another.
5. Tiger barbs will school with fish that have similar patterns of color. Watch your tiger barbs school alongside clown loaches, five-banded barbs, and even flame tetras.
6. Female tiger barbs can lay as many as 1000 eggs in a day.
7. Depending on the strain of tiger barb fish, adults may reach anywhere from 2-4 inches in size.
8. The term "barb" applies to all members of the genus, which differ from other cyprinids in that they completely lack barbels near the mouth.
9. Tiger barbs are notorious for their fin-nipping tendencies; they may harass members of other species. However, this behavior is usually minimal in barbs kept in sufficiently large schools.
10. Tiger barbs have no obvious sexual differences, but the females may be a bit stouter than the males.
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