# Tiger barbs and Lighting



## barbus (7 Jan 2017)

Hi,

I am experiencing the following problem with my green tiger barbs. Since I keep them for quite a long time I am very aware how to keep them: they are 16 in 300 L in good conditions, lots of plants and hiding places with large open areas for swimming. Big external filter provides biological filtration and water movement.They are also fed well with flakes, frozen,  spirulina food, but still they keep hiding almost all day long only when the light is less they start to come out and play as they are described to be active fish, so I concluded the light is the thing, but I do not have strong lighting , only 108 w for 300 L T5 tubes.
anyone experiencing the same thing with the barbs? any opinion would be appriciated
is there any chance to solve this situation to make them more active?

thanks.


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## zozo (7 Jan 2017)

I have a different type of barb and maybe a different setup than yours regarding planting, i have no large groups of stems, only a few dense groups of crypt which are not ideal for this size of fish to hide in... But i experience them staying rather at the substrate level during the day. But also have surface vegitation, i notice when this is growing denser over time they tend to be all over the tank even close to the surface occassionaly... And when i trim it and thin it out to rigorously, they rather stay down again.. In my case i have salvinia, duckweed and hygroryza arista.. The last one is nice it has a rather large leaf and +/- 20 cm long hanging roots, creating i kind of upside down forest. This plant might be something for you to try and triggers them out of hidding.


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## alto (7 Jan 2017)

What else is in the tank?


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## barbus (7 Jan 2017)

zozo :  yes , i do believe it is the light in your case too, if you say that the surface plants help them . I do have several types of floating plants, including aristata, duckweed, limnobium and so on, but not so dense to cover the whole surface, it is rather open for the stems below, maybe this is the key. I'm not sure if the gravel size matters, everywhere it is said to have fine type of sand or similar  possibly dark colored, ...well I do have dark colored gravel but not really sand, it is aqua medic volcanit gravel mixed with 2 years old amazonia substrate 2- 4 mm size. Mines are staying low close to the gravel as in your case too, as soon as i switch the light off , they instantly come out all of them.

alto: I also have 3 rasboras harlequin, 3 SAE, 1 otocinclus and 1 yoyo loach


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## zozo (7 Jan 2017)

I've got about the same black gravel a bit smaller not bigger than 2mm.. In your case it might be how do you plant the tank vs fish stocking.. Mine are constantly in the open but stay rather lower region.. I do not mind. They are also constantly foraging from the substrate and found out they eat planaria..  But noticed when i didn't clean out surface vegitation for a few months and it became realy dense and they were all over the tank.. Also got a school of boraras and these are always close to the surface even with lesser surface vegitation..

I had tiger barbs long time ago also in a very low light tank but also with out jungles of stemplants.. I guess they use what you provide them with, if you give them places to hide they will.


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## barbus (8 Jan 2017)

I do not have jungle of stemplants, but still there are some ...i already quit the dutch style. there are many hiding places made mostly of roots , I'm gonna post a vid later

I heard that , if there are other fish in the tank that are more active and they do not show fear when there is a movement in the room or a quiet noise , they tend to be active as well, so called they "learn" that from other fish, im not sure if it is true, it's just what I've read.


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## zozo (8 Jan 2017)

barbus said:


> I do not have jungle of stemplants, but still there are some ...i already quit the dutch style. there are many hiding places made mostly of roots , I'm gonna post a vid later
> 
> I heard that , if there are other fish in the tank that are more active and they do not show fear when there is a movement in the room or a quiet noise , they tend to be active as well, so called they "learn" that from other fish, im not sure if it is true, it's just what I've read.



Yes this could help a lot.. But also something you need to take your chances with... I noticed my ember tetras which also have a rather shy character come out of hiding and more outgoing when i introduced a small school of black tetras. do not know if it's a number thing.. They school together and are close related. Maybe if i added more embers instead might have done the same. I do not know, since i never did.. But in a way logicaly thinking, schooling fish feel safer in larger groups.  It also can be a matter of time, but that;s for them to deside when to be conditioned long enough not to consider outside movement as a threat.. But i have seen fish behaivor change and improve over time without my intervention..  What could help is condition them with feeding, like taping the top corner of the glass each day before feeding. After a few weeks they will race towards that corner with only taping the glass it conditions them not to see outside movement as a threat, but as a food supplier... Try it in the LFS if you see a big tank with a large school of angels. Than raise your hand to the right top corner of the tank, 80% chance you see them come towards it all together. Angels pick this up realy quick, and till now it worked in every lfs i've seen tanks with angels. And since they are in majority captive bred fish they are over generations conditioned with hand feeding..


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## sciencefiction (9 Jan 2017)

This reminds me a lot of my clown loaches when I first got them years ago. They were absolutely terrified of me. In fact, the subsequent clown loaches I bought weren't near as bad. Somewhere down the line those fish had been severely stressed... It took for mine a couple of years to stop being spooked by me simply by being present nearby..I just treated them with patience. When doing water changes I'd do the minimum of fuss. I also tend to drop a bit of food while doing a water change so fish start associating the event with something good. Knocking on the glass though is not an option with very skittish fish. They reacted badly even to the front door being open. Noise didn't go well with them.

If the tank is in a busy area of the house, you can try blocking the sides and back with something black. This will prevent them being spooked by movement, also eliminate light reflection which they may not like. At least you can try it temporary. Other than that, as zozo says, sometimes a group of suitable more outgoing fish may help....may not...

In rare cases, skittish fish are stressed not just by what seems to us obvious, as the light, but something in the water or disease..but that's not so likely if they've been in good condition for a good while.


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## zozo (9 Jan 2017)

What also could help you to understand the fish beter is to find out where you got them from.. Even if there are captive bred communities it still doesn't mean they are, could easily be wild catch.. Very skitish behaivor points to likely wildcatch.. Tho it seems unlikely with green tigers but they seem to be a wild strain in the genus and might occassionale available as wild. The original Tiger is almost constantly available as wild catch too.

Ask the vendor for their importer (in case you want to order things they don't have, is the best excuse to get this info  ) The importers also wanna sell and most likely have a database on the internet to look up what available.. In my country 80% of the lfs do bussines with this one. This importer is one of the biggest in the Netherlands sells wild tigers and also captive bred strains. I guess they are spread over the lfs's by availability without qeustions asked. Till now i never seen an lfs flaging wild caught fish as such.. They rather hush about it ot just don't care to tell.. 
https://www.ruinemans.com/en-GB/6052/tiger-barb-wild.html


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## barbus (9 Jan 2017)

today something special has  happend. I went to the store and I bought 7 more rasboras and 2 more SAE-s, after half an hour all of them were accomodated with the new tank and guess what...all my barbs came out suddenly , became more active and started to play among them and chase as they used to ....a bit .  After one hour  they did not care anymore about the new fish , they went back to their places  under the leafs to their hiding places. So it has to be with socialising with other schools of fish....maybe I have to put more rasboras?    

The tank is placed in a very quiet room , there is no considerable trafic just me , but the walls are white , pretty bright room, maybe the environment is too bright for them? no idea
but when I thought  yeah I finaly solved the problem, it only lasted 1 hour .

These fish were not like that when I bought them, they used to chase alot eachother , only when they got a little bit bigger became like that.
I have no idea where the store are getting them from, but one thing is sure , are import fish ...good chances that are from asia...or who knows..


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## barbus (22 Jan 2017)

hi,
It's been a while, so I came with an update.
ever since i put the rasboras in,  the situation is much better I can say I solved it  , I let the following vid to talk for itselfe:


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## nbaker (11 Feb 2017)

Very nice looking tank and the Tigers certainly seem happy now


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