Fish on Fish violence

[pmcsomething]

So some of my BA's are ganging up on each other. Here are the pics, some of them are not to good. How shall I stop the fighting?

You can see that he is missing the upper part of his lips. His fins are also being attacked. He was one of the original three homies.

Here is my tank too, besides a better picture, any suggestions on how to make it look better.

I am really wanting to 'trade' or 'donate' them to a LFS since I want to make the switch to Rams.

 

[TabMorte]

How many BAs do you have?

We've heard a lot about them being aggressive. Most aggressive tetras and barbs chill out in larger schools though (6+)

 

[pmcsomething]

I have a group of 5 of them. I thought by adding two more to get them up to 5 it would calm then down, but it has not.

 

[pwrmacG4]

I would sit and watch the tank and see if you can figure out which one is the bully and remove it. If there are more than one, you might have to remove a few of them. the stress caused by being bullied will kill the fish if the fighting doesn't.

as for decor.. I would get a nice piece of driftwood and a background. maybe more live plants. but overall.. a nice tank!

 

[TabMorte]

Some light of sight breaks will help too. 5 is still a small group for schooling fish as well. BUT if you're planning to get rid of them don't bother getting more.

 

[ravichr]

I guess each fish has a personality. I had to remove my Serpae Tetras and Head-Tail light tetras from the tank because they were attacking each other and scared the hell out of my Platies. Now with just the platies, the tank is a better place.

BTW the I feel bad for the injured one. I would advise you to remove/ return them.

 

[punkrockfish]

a nice piece of driftwood would be nice, and once your plants grow in it should help fill in the space. as for the fish, aggression is more spread out in larger groups, and if you haven't had them for a long time then this could just be them establishing a natural pecking order.

 

[crimsontsavo]

If they're mainly picking on the one fish and adding more fish doesn't help.. try removing the picked on fish. Sometimes fish don't like each other and theres nothing you can do about it except remove that fish.

 

[s_anthony]

Or maybe add some plants in the water that they can hide?

Maybe doing something similar to keeping puffers might work where they have tall plants and they aren't in direct view of each other to fight?

 

[jediinthedark]

Your plants seem yellow to me which means they may be missing something... Iron? Phosphate? I forget which causes yellowing.
What are the "twiggy" plants on the far left? Are they new, or have they been around for a while? It looks like it wants to be water sprite or wysteria, but without leaves.

Removing the bubbler may help your plants grow better. You don't have much CO2 in the water as it is, the HOB filter will be getting rid of some of it, and the bubbler will get rid of the rest.

Not a bad little tank. How many neons are in there?
If the neons aren't getting bothered then I would think that increasing the pack of BA would calm them all down a little.

 

[HallucinoJinn]

Hey, I don't have much experience, but I was wondering if I could maybe chip in? (And basically repeat what everyone else has already said ) I happen to have tiger barbs, and I found that the aggression decreased with not only larger amounts of them, and far more hidey spots/territories, but also with one more thing: decreased lighting. I lightly spray painted some black paint onto a cover for my lighting, and the tigers seem to have subdued due to this... I don't know if this would help at all for your fish, but maybe it's worth a try? Lots of luck with the little aggressives!

 

[pmcsomething]

Whoops, did not update this thread, thought it was dead. The one little BA who was getting picked was placed in another tank and died a few days later. So he was laid to rest. I traded in the remaining four to my LFS. I picked up two Bolivians Rams, and now have 11 Neon Tetras, 4 Otos. Here is an overall shot of the tank.

On the suggestions, I will remove the bubbler. I ran out of Excel to dose with, but the 'twiggy' plant is indeed wysteria. It is relatively new and has not had a chance to grow in yet.

Slightly changed a little.

 

[HallucinoJinn]

I really like the new look. Sorry to hear about the BAs though.

 

[jediinthedark]

Once established the Wysteria will grow like a weed. At least it does in my tank - to the point where leaf litter is an issue.

 

[MissFishy]

Tank is looking very good! A suggestion though is to use the vertical space in your tank by adding something taller. A tall plant perhaps?

 

[jediinthedark]

I think some of those swords are tall growers.

 

[pmcsomething]

Yea, I am waiting for the taller plants to grow taller. I am happy with this setup, I just need the glosso to explode and we can call it a day. I am looking for some more plants that will grow tall. I am off to the LFS this weekend to try and find some more plants and maybe a male BR.