Probably the best known and most commonly available of the barb species, the Tiger Barb is undoubtedly the fish which has given other members of this family such an undeserved bad reputation. In comparison to some other species, they can be a little nippy, but kept under the right circumstances, this can be controlled to a degree. Tiger Barbs should be kept in large shoals, really 8-10 fish forming the minimum recommended size group. These large sized groups normally keep them preoccupied with each other, rather than focussing their attentions on different fish species within the same aquarium. Common sense must be applied and no long-finned fish should be kept with Tiger Barbs. As Tiger Barbs are such an active species, they should be provided with a spacious aquarium aquascaped with robust plant species. Green, Albino, Platinum and Harlequin aquarium-bred strains are also available and these types can all be kept together in shoals very successfully. After decades in the hobby it's recently become clear that the fish we've known for years as P. tetrazona is an imposter, the real tetrazona has distinctive black pelvic fins and is rarely imported from its Sumatran homeland.
Feeding
Flake, green flake, micropellets, slow-sinking pellets (for larger specimens), frozen foods such as mosquito larvae, brineshrimp, Mysis shrimp etc.
Breeding
A dedicated spawning aquarium should be set up with soft, slightly acidic water. The substrate should consist of marbles, and good amounts of fine-leaved plants should be used. Spawning is often triggered by the first rays of morning sunlight hitting the aquarium glass, and the female can deposit up to 500 eggs amongst the plants/marbles. As spawning is such an active affair, the parent fish are constantly hungry and often predate on the eggs as they are laid. In order to stop this from happening, many aquarists use a pipette to drop in small amounts of (defrosted) frozen mosquito larvae during spawning, so that the adults turn their attention to this rather than the eggs. Once spawning has ceased, acclimatise the parents back to main aquarium. The eggs should hatch within 24-36 hours.