Tiger Barbs or Puntius tetrazona are a schooling fish that have been kept in aquarium for over seventy years. They are native to Thailand and Borneo. There are currently three color forms. The normal tan with black stripes and orange tips fins. The Green Moss in which the black strips have fused in one mass and has a green irridescent color. The third form is the albino which has black area where the strips should be and orange tipped fins. They are fairly easy to sex. The females have a big belly full of eggs. The males will be more slender. They like to play the game of biting the fins of their tank mates. If you are kept in a large enough group, they will tend to play with each other. They should be kept in groups of six or more.

Food: They eat with gusto. They like flake food, or shrimp pellets. They also love live food. I have listed them in the spawning section.

Water conditions: They like soft to medium water hardness. They prefer a pH 6.5 - 7.5.

Temperature: They prefer mid-seventies to low eighties in water temperature.

Tank size: They are active fish that room to swim around. They will swim back and forth chasing each other across any tank. I think they need a twenty long tank or larger.


Spawning: They are a scatter spawner. They lay their eggs loosely on the bottom of the tank. If the tank is bare they will eat the eggs. The trick to put a layer of marbles or large pebbles on the tank bottom. The eggs fall into the cracks and the adults cannot eat them. You want to the adult lots of live food like bloodworms, Daphnia, grindal worms, Brine Shrimp, or mosquito larvae. The Green Moss form is dominate when crossing and results in more babies. If you want green moss babies breed one with a normal and you will get about half GM form. They albino need to be crossed with a parent that carry the gene. The albino seem to be weaker fish. I suspect they like other albino fish do not see as well.

The eggs will take two or three days to hatch. The fry are almost invisible. I like use green water to raise the fry since they are too small to eat brine shrimp the first week or so. You can start to feed brine shrimp at that point. Be careful not to overfeed or they will die from the build up of waste in the water. They color up like their parent when very small. I have seen them in the shop for sale when smaller than a dime. They slowly grow up. I have found that whenever a large group of babies is being raising. Some grow bigger and eat fast than the rest. You will have a large range of size. Some of them will be stunted from not getting enough food to grow at a normal rate. I have raised these myself. It is not that hard to do.

If you have specific question not answered contact me. I will revise the guide in the future and welcome feedback.