Breeding Tiger Barbs

Male Tiger Barb

Female Tiger Barbs

Females with Eggs or Roe

A great deal has been written about developing breeding pairs and spawning schools of Barbs and if you sift through the material you can pick up enough information to raise your own batch of fishes.

Barbs will spawn in community tanks if:  the adults are well conditioned and ripe with eggs, the water is close to ideal, and you trigger the event with a stimulant when you are ready.  But how will you save the eggs and fry from being eaten, and how will you ensure the fry don't starve or eat too much and drown or get sucked into the gravel or other filters? 

You need to do a lot of reading or have a procedure to follow to ensure success.  Trial and error  is a long frustrating process that will break your heart.

The procedure I am writing below is a work in progress for now until I get it right.  I wll let you know when I am done.

Condition a pair of Barbs until female is plump like picture above.  Although you might want to use eggs and fry from your community tank as conditioning food, I suggest you buy freeze dried brine shrimp and tubiflex worms instead, for the Barbs you want to spawn.  Monitor temp and PH to have it in the desired range.

1. clean a 10 - 20 gallon tank, bleach the glass and trim inside and out, rince it well with garden hose, fill and let stand to check for leaks.  You could rinse it in a bathtub or shower.  3 rinses are best.  A little bleach goes a long way; a tablespoon in a gallon is strong enough; use a clean cloth to wipe down the glass but not the chrome. Bleach will eat away at the tank seal, so when you finish bleaching rinse right away, and rinse until you cannot smell bleach.  If you smell bleach after rinsing then wipe down with vinegar solution of about half a cup to a gallon.  This is a good cleaner for outside of tank.

2. soak enough steam sterilized red / brown Sphagnum peat moss to cover half the bottom 2 - 3 cm. deep until it will not float, using treated tap water (treated for fish just as you do to add water to your community tank to eliminate chlorine etc.)

3. perform water change on tank with fishes about 1 week before you buy plants for spawning tank.

4. buy, wash, disinfect and wash again plants with fine stems and leaves such as Fanwort, Hornwort, hair grass or Myriophyllum (one way to disinfect is to use a slight pink solution of potassium permaganate in a ice cream pail of 3 - 4 liters of tap water.  swish the plants, let stand for 3/4 hour then rinse clean with tap water;  add the crystals in small amounts and stir; if the solution is really pink or purple then pour some off and add water.  This is an oxidizing agent and will kill paracites, snail eggs, bacteria, but if strong enough will kill the plants )

4. Set up the tank with undergravel filter on 2/3 of bottom, clean washed natural gravel (suggestions : with rounded edges, not sharp, clean washed sand on top).  On other 1/3 pack in the wet peat moss.  You can just cover the peat with washed gravel but you will stir it up when you plant your plants.  So if you are not going to cover the peat moss { with undergravel filter bottom or fine plastic mesh from a sewing store, then gravel on top to hold it down}  then it would be a good idea to add plant roots top of peat, smother roots in gravel, one plant at a time; then add another 2 - 3 cm of gravel over all the area with peat underneath.  If you cover the peat with mesh or bottom of undergravel filter then add 2-3 cm of gravel on top and add extra smooth rock or gravel to the area where the peat side slopes down to meet up with undergravel filter side.  Plant about half your plants on the peat and half on other side in thick bunches. 

5.  Add treated tap water, use household white vinegar to lower PH just below 7.0.  Set up a siphon to slowly add water using air hose. fill half the spawning tank.

6.  Clean, bleach and tripple rinse  heater before installation.  Set same temp as tank with fishes.

7. Clean, bleach, and tripple rinse two or three see through plastic box filters, air hoses, airstones, and rocks for bottom of filter (to hold them down on the bottom. use regular bat fibre filter media, but no charcoal or small particle filter media.  We will catch eggs herein and fry will hatch inside the filter.

8.  Add a water softening pillow to one of the box filters with fibre filter media, or use the kind that you can just hang into the tank.  Clean the pillow by boiling in salt water before using.  Install in tank.

9.  set box filters in the corners of the tank so fish cannot get behind them, begin airation.

10.  perform 1/2 water change on community fish tank (off the top ) and save drained water to fill spawning tank

11. set heater in community tank 1 degree under low end of temp. for Barbs breeding range.  provide 12 hours light and 12 hours darkness

12.  set heater temp to low end of breeding range for Barbs in spawning tank.  Set timer for 12 hours light and 12 hours darkness

13.  monitor temperature and PH, and as the peat begins to decompose the water will turn red / brown, and PH will drop

14.  feed the community tank Barbs high protein frozen, live (if available), and freeze dried foods with lots of fiber ( we don't want the females egg bound) -- feed half dozen times a day in small amounts for 3 or 4 days -- then stop feeding  except for live food if available.

15.  Give the Barbs a day to clean out the undigested matter and then feed them just enough to catch them easily on the surface -- if you cannot catch them without causing low stress, wait a day and try again. 

16.  Add fish to spawning tank

17. Add cleaned floating plants on top

18.  they might spawn within the next hour so watch them

19.  slowly raise temperature 1/2 to 1 degree per day until top end of spawning temperature range is reached

 20.  add Blackwater Tonic as per directions on the bottle

21. let nature take its course, but watch carefully

22.  When you see eggs stuck to plants and the fish eating them, remove the fishes.  The fry will hatch within 24 - 48 hours

23.  Feed with green water, egg layer liquid food, your own boiled eggs powdered and diluted with distilled water, newly hatched baby brine shrimp, switch to live bearer liquid food when fry grow bigger.

24 do not turn on under gravel filter until the fishes are at  least 1/2 inch long

- as the peat decomposes (primarily anerobic decomposition)  the water will turn brownish read and these floating particles will then decompose further in the presence of oxygen in the circulating water;  so the PH raises then drops, and drops slowly.  The tannins are realeased and these help soften the water.  As you increase the temperature slowly, over the period of 5 - 6 days conditions become more and more favorable as the peat decomposes

any luck with the tiger barbs?

I'm trying to get my snakeskin barbs (desmopuntius rhomboocellatus)  into condition, and figure the method should be the same. I've got very little chance of getting any viable fry but one step at a time. 

yes, I have had both Tiger Barbs and Albino Tiger Barbs spawn in a 10 and 25 gal tanks.  The eggs stick to the plants, and hatch after a few days.  However my success rate after the fry begin to swim freely is poor

yes, I have had both Tiger Barbs and Albino Tiger Barbs spawn in a 10 and 25 gal tanks.  The eggs stick to the plants, and hatch after a few days.  However my success rate after the fry begin to swim freely is poor