Breading black Ruby babrs

[andy.keeper]

I noticed lately my barbs have more intense colors in the morning when the lights go on, they follow the female round the tank and the one male chances the other male away from the female, I guess he wants babies with her but I'm not sure how to go about making it happen, I have half the tank with plants and half empty to allow for different needs of the fish and all my chem levels are normal, I'm not sure if they need temps or Chen levels adjusted to get them ready to lay, any help is appreciated

 

[Barliman]

Yeah, judging from the coloration of the one on the right, I'd say that's a male getting in the mood for love - congratulations, that means you're doing a good job.

Barbs (if I recall right) are egg scatterers: the female pops out the eggs, the male fertilizes them, and they pay no more attention to them. (Except sometimes eating fry they can catch) I don't think you need to do anything else special.

 

[rlederer]

Barbs scatter their eggs and will eat eggs as well as fry. I notice a Black Tetra in the tank and there may be others; they will find the eggs tasty as well. To encourage breeding, raise the temp a few degrees and remove the other fish. After spawning, remove the adults.

 

[andy.keeper]

The problem I have is the only other tank I have is home to a map turtle, I have lots of plants in half the tank so if they lay eggs in there, hopefully, some of the fry would hide in the plants and be okay, we will see, thanks guys, I'll now turn my temp up a couple of ℃

 

[andy.keeper]

So I set the rank up to 27.5°c and now they don't go red and chase the female so I dropped it back to 26°C, I also put some large gravel on top of my sand in the plants for eggs to fall into if it happens