Tiger barbs and Pictus Catfish

[Toona]

Well typical Walmart trip...my wife saw these two types of fish and says "oooo get some of these" I luckily talked her out of it and said let me see if that would be ok first. Well my tank is a standard 30 gal community tank it has 3 guppies (2F, 1M) , 6 serpae tetras, 1 cory (i know I need to get him a friend), a rescue male betta (doing well and one Female guppy has a crush on him I think), 2 Mickey Mouse Platys (1M, 1F). So the big question is would tiger barbs fit in. I know they have a tendancy to fin nip but I have also heard keeping them in schools of 6 or more might avoid that. I know nothing about the pictus cats so any info would be great!! thanks

[FishLover14]

Tiger barbs nip fins terribly even in groups. I would definetiyl not put them in with those ifsh.

For info on pictus cats go to Planet Catfish.com

HTH

Dan

[Melody]

Pictus cat will eat EVERYTHING is sight. and they grow fast...
tiger barbs are little terrors... comical to watch, but my school keeps my gourmies hiding in the sword plant. and Gourmies are semi agressive... Someone said that a larger school keeps the agression down, well I have seen just the opposite. Even when I have my arm in the tank they all attack me at once... Some of the larger ones can even give a decent little pinch.

[mgkaelen]

i have a few pictus cats; they're better in a school of at LEAST 3 (planning to get 2 more myself in the next week or so), but they are the goofiest fish ever. they need swimming room but also like to hide, one of mine hides in a cave and the other behind plants. they eat a lot but they don't rob the rest of my tank of food. if there's ever any flakes that come down from the filter when i'm feeding my gourami, they'll eat them, and every other day i put a few of those meaty pellets in. they seem to be happy. mine haven't grown HUGE , but i think they may be close to full size already. i'd definitely get them over the tiger barbs. as said above, my barbs bullied my gourami's into the corners : (

[pkremer]

Not to mention the fact that if those guppies are fancy tail guppies, they won't be fancy for long with the tiger barbs. Also, I have seen fish that don't ordinarily nip fins go after my betta like you wouldn't believe. My killifish had never bothered any of my other fish. I put in a betta to see if it would work and they went to work chewing on him right away. So if fish that don't ordinarily nip go after a betta, you could expect a known nipping fish to go crazy! Tiger barbs would be devastating on your betta no matter how many you put in, and probably wouldn't be good with the guppies either.

Paul

[BASSNMAN]

I have 2 tiger barbs in my community tank. When I added 2 good size angels, the barbs pestered them constantly. Soooo, I put the tiger barbs in the tank with my albino oscar for a day. They don't bother the angels now they have had an attitude adjustment!