Tropical Fish Forums

[aquaBee]

Hey all! I have been growing dwarf baby tears as a carpet plant in my aquarium. Today I introduced some albino tiger barbs, and they are just going to town on my baby tears! There's some algae and just a few brown areas on the baby tears, so I wonder if they're just trying to graze on the algae. Thoughts? I don't want to lose the entire plant to the barbs! Are they known to be destructive?? They're not touching the crinum at all.

Thanks
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All bleeding stops eventually...

[aquaBee]

The barbs nearly destroyed half of my dwarf baby tears by eating the tiny leaves off the stems, and they even went after the tips of the long, beautiful crinum. I had to take them out and will be returning them to my LFS tomorrow.

Is this a common occurrence? I can't find information about barbs attacking plants anywhere!

bee
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All bleeding stops eventually...

[keithkyli]

Well...IMO in terms of aggressiveness and plant-unfriendliness, I'll put tiger barbs at a little higher level than P. scalare angelfish. They are constantly nipping and anything edible is taken without hesitation.
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Diamond Hill, Hong Kong

[aquaBee]

Thanks keithkyli. I woke up the next morning to find my lemon tetras going crazy on the plants too! I've never seen this before! So both sets of fish went back to the LFS, much to the surprise of the owner.

On another note, my poor little dwarf baby tears is heroically sending out more runners in a valiant attempt at recovery.
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All bleeding stops eventually...