Tiger In My Tank

I found some larger Tiger Barbs at a pet shop in Kissimmee and bought ten. The Jack Dempsey completely ignored them, and that's a good thing. I was hoping for that but you can never tell for sure. The next morning I could only find eight. The Jack would swim around as if the Barbs weren't there and the Barbs would clear a path if the Jack came near them and there was no sign of aggression. I couldn't figure out where the 2 Barbs went. It's possible they were eaten sometime during the night. I was nervous the next night and when I came home there were still eight. I felt better, but where did the fish go. One more night and there were still eight. Everyone was eating and happy. Suddenly I noticed there were nine Barbs, one of them showed up! Where was he?

The Barbs do the trick for me. They are colorful, active and large enough to stay out of the Jack's mouth. My plan is to get ten more, that should make a nice school. Now if I could only find that last Barb.

This could have gone the other way and I might have fed the Jack Dempsey a very expensive meal (relatively). You have to choose tankmates very carefully, especially when you are dealing with the larger Cichlids. They are extremely territorial and sometimes kill any new fish that pop up in their territory - usually the whole tank.