Barbs: The Semi-Aggressive Schooling Fish

 Barbs also known as barbels belong to the family of Cyprinidae. These species were first named as Cyprinus Barbus and now called Barbel Barbus. Their common names - barbs, and barbels refer to the fact that most members of the genera have a pair of barbels on their mouth, which they can use to sense or locate food and prey.

Some of the barbs are semi-aggressive fish when housed in the aquarium individually, so it is important to maintain each species in groups of six or more. This technique will minimize aggression towards more passive tank mates.

Tiger Barb

Barbs are generally found in Europe, Africa and Asia. Larger barbels are often fished for food in native villages and some of them have commercial significance. The hard roe of the Barbus is often poisonous.

The size of the barbs varies widely. Barbs can be as small as 1 to 2 inches and the mahseer of India may be 2 m (6.5 feet) long. Also the lifespan of these fishes varies from 5 to 15 years.

Different Types of Barb Fish

There are around 2000 varieties of barb fishes in the world. Following are some of the types of barbs.

1. Cherry Barb: These fishes are from Kelani basin near Sri Lanka. They have brown or tan scales with orange and red tones. During mating seasons male turn into cherry red color.

2. Tiger Barb: It has silver scales featuring black stripes with orange highlights on its fins and mouth. Not only does it have a color pattern like a tiger, but this fish is also known to nip at the delicate fins of other fish.

3. Gold Barb: Also called Chinese barb and it's from the red river basin, China. In nature they are green, but gold colored hybrids are popular and available fish for the aquarium.

4. Rosy Barb: These fishes are from the northern part of India. In the wild, males are red and females are brassy gold. During mating seasons the color of the fish intensifies.

5. Black Ruby Barb: The young black ruby barb fish has a yellowish-grey body with black vertical stripes. The silver body transforms into a dark ruby, black color in mature, breeding males. In females, the basal part of all vertical fins is black whereas, in males, the whole dorsal fin is a deep black.

6. Denison Barb: These fishes have stripes of green and red that run down their slender bodies. The fish are a large species of barb that require a large tank to thrive.

7. Tinfoil Barb: Tinfoil barbs have shimmery, metallic silver scales and orange/yellow fins and an orange tail with black accents.

8. Zebra Barb: Zebra Barb has horizontal stripes rather than vertical bands, giving rise to the name Zebra. These are peaceful in nature.

9. Stoliczkae's Barb: These fishes are available occasionally. They are subtly colored, peaceful species sporting red fins.

10. Melon Barb: The body of these fishes features gold color with black spots and bars. Sometimes green sheen overlyies it all with red in the dorsal.

11. Rhombo Barb: Common names for the fish are snakeskin barb or orange barb. These fishes have odd, tear-dropped shape black markings on the body.

12. Odessa Barb: This is a silver fish with dark edging to the scales and black markings on the body and in the fins. When males are in good condition it features a red horizontal band on the mid body.

13. Gelius Barb: The color of these fishes varies on geographical variations. Common colors are golden-yellow with black markings. Males are more colorful compared to females.

14. Checkerboard Barb: In this fish the leading edge of the scale is black which gives the checkerboard look. The body color varies from silver to brown on the males and females are more silver.

15. Chubby Head Barb: Chubbyhead barbs are gold or silver with black markings, blunt head with small mouth.

16. Clown Barb: Clown barb have an orange body with red fins and black bands on their sides. These are semi-aggressive and difficult to care for.

17.Beardless Barb: These are iridescent silver fish that don't have a barbel. These are mainly found in southeast Asia.

18. Five Banded Barb: These fishes have five vertical bands in their body, making it easy to identify.

19. Green Stripe Barb: Green stripe barbs also known as silver barb or striped barb. These are peaceful fish that make suitable tank mates for most of the other fish species.

20. Khavli or Maharaja Barb: Native of Maharaja barb is India. These fishes can be identified by its gold body and black spots, with gold eyes and translucent fins.

21. Sawbwa Barb: These barbs have thinner and more elongated bodies. Silver-blue body patterned with red spot on nose and caudal fin tips.

22. Swamp Barb: Swamp barbs have silvery-blue bodies with a black spot before the tail. Although swamp barbs don’t look as impressive as the other barbs. 

23. Spanner Barb: These are silver fish with dark gray markings along its body. Spanner barbs have pale yellow heads with small dorsal and ventral fins.

24. Two-Spot Barb: Also known as redside barbs originated from southern India. Bodies of these fishes have two black spots, one near head and another near tail.

25. Arulius Barb: Arulius barbs are light brown on the sides and white on the ventral surface. The fish have several black blotches: one in the middle of the body and one above the anal fin.

Food and Diet

Most of the barb fishes are Omnivorous. They eat algae, smaller fish and insects. They are aggressive hunters and may go for the bigger fish but usually, their prey is smaller.

You can feed them flakes, granules and shrimp pellets. Frozen or live foods are also good to help induce spawning.

Breeding

Barbs reach sexual maturity after six weeks. Barbs are egg layers and need to separate adults from eggs after spawning as barbs have a tendency to eat their own eggs. Female barb releases around 300 eggs at a time and male barb fertilizes them by releasing sperms. The egg will hatch in 2 to 3 days.

Tank and Water Conditions

Smaller species will require a tank of 10 to 20 gallons, medium requires 30 to 55 gallons and larger species like tinfoil barbs require a 125 or larger aquarium. Since these are schooling fishes, a group of minimum 6 to 10 fishes preferred, use of larger aquariums will give plenty of the space for the swimming.

In today's condition most of the aquarium species are raised in water that has higher pH compared to the native place. The temperature of water should be in the range of 24 to 27 °C. Maintaining a good filtration and 10 to 25 % change of once a week is recommended.