Tiger Barb courting or fighting?

[WhiteDevil]

Ok, I got tiger barbs, two "albinos" and 5 regular tigers. well I got a regular and an "albino" doing something weird.

they are face to face well eye to eye(eyes are on sides remember this) and are going in a tight circle like if you were to spin the ying-yang symbol. I cant get a pic cause they are moving too fast.


I am keeping an eye on them but tiger barb breeders, is it love or hate?

They all get along fine really mild mannered for barbs.

 

[willsta2000]

Hey Raymond,

When mine have done that, it's been 2 females, but not necessarily even the alpha and a potential "challenger", and it hasn't necessarily been associated with breeding condition (big gravid tummies). Regular females are less colorful than the males, having a brown face, and less of an orange hue overall, the males will have a more red face/bit of an orange hue. I'm not sure how to sex the albinos. Another interesting tidbit, if you see them doing it again, check out their stripes, they will pick up a colloidal green color while they are swirling. The male and female will also pick up the green when spawning, but the green is not necessarily limited nor defined by those behaviors.

 

[WhiteDevil]

no greens, this was my vibrant two of the morphs. bright orange male with deep black lines and a neon orange set of lips on him. I have one rather large barb in the "albino"( aint a true albino, more of a blonde IMO)that is sizeable amongst the others. Ive seen her with 2-3 males bickering behind her( only think its a her due to size of female region)

It was pretty neat, kinda took me by suprise too.

I went to a meeting tonight and checked on them when I got in(after lights out) not a single fish to be seen, not even a cory, everything was gasping at the top. My daughter, was in my stand while I was gone as due to evidence of a dozen stuffed animals left behind, and flipped the switch on the filters and pumps, oops. turned em on, as soon as the water was flowing the fish started sinking and becoming fish again. did a quick WT and everything was OK.

But they do it again ill try and get a video, pics are unpossible to obtain of this action and dont do the action justice.

 

[willsta2000]

"everything was gasping at the top"

My barbs all assume a downwards-facing position near the surface when sleeping, is this what they were doing? You have to get up pretty early in the AM to see them doing this, though, maybe 2-4 AM. They'll be all over the place, on top of my powerhead behind my biofilter spillway, at the tops of plants, etc., and they scatter when doing this, as well.
ALso, when I said green, I didn't mean the green TB variety, the black stripes actually undergo a temporary color change when they're swirling and spawning.
funny fish