What to do with very aggressive Barb

[missnikki]

I have two barbs which have lived together for almost a year with no problems.

However, in the last couple months one barb has been very aggressive towards the other. He is constantly chasing, nipping at and trying to beat up this other barb to the point where the other barb has cut his mouth and scared him into hiding in ornaments all day to get away from him.

My boyfriend says we should remove the aggressive barb, but I would feel bad about killing the aggressive barb even though he is a little a-hole. I thought about maybe buying a small tank and removing one of the barbs and letting it live alone or something ...

What should I do???

 

[Purple]

Kinda depends on the tank set up – how big – how many fish in there ?

Do you know if they are male or female ?

 

[missnikki]

No idea if they are male or female.

There are 17 fish in the tank. It's a 60 gallon freshwater.

He doesn't really seem to bother any of the other fish, just the fellow barb.

 

[lauraf]

My boyfriend says we should remove the aggressive barb, but I would feel bad about killing the aggressive barb even though he is a little a-hole.

Why does removing the fish mean killing it? You can take it back to a fish store. Even if they won't give you money for it, they should be willing to adopt it back from you . . . . .

 

[OrangeCones]

What kind of barb is it? Have you added or removed any other fish recently?

 

[Fishman1995]

You could try adding in a couple more barbs? If not, id remove the barb and give it back to the LFS.