# How agressive cherry barbs can get ?



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Anybody has kept cherry barbs successfully with other community fish ? I have kept them before successfully with neons, rummy nose tetras and guppies before. But 6 month ago I started a bigger tank and moved my fish in to it. Lately I noticed that recently added male guppies which have red / range color got stressed and started to die. Today I noticed that my cherry barb (who is the oldest one and has been with me for over a year) is attacking them All my other cherry barbs which is smaller and much younger are not that aggressive. I don't understand why he started to do it. may be because before in my smaller tank I only had male barbs and in this one I have both males and females and he is protective or could it be any other reason ? Any help is appreciated.


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## RevoBuda (Sep 3, 2011)

Chances are it's all got to do with male rivalry! I had 2 male emperor tetras and 8 females... the males literally killed one another in a heavily planted tank. They had plenty place to hide and plenty females to go around, but these guys just wanted at each other's throats.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

RevoBuda said:


> Chances are it's all got to do with male rivalry! I had 2 male emperor tetras and 8 females... the males literally killed one another in a heavily planted tank. They had plenty place to hide and plenty females to go around, but these guys just wanted at each other's throats.


I had 3 male cherries before in 10Gl tank (this one is one of them) with other fish like tetra and guppies and they wore fine there. Never attacked any other fish.


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## RevoBuda (Sep 3, 2011)

Yea but now you have females... Women make men do stupid shit with humans, imagine animals behaving based on instinct alone without reason...


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## Mr. Scruples (Apr 20, 2012)

Yep, I'd say it's a safe bet the females are getting them all whipped up. Some fish can get more aggressive as they age as well, but I doubt that's the case here.

Try moving the females out of the tank for a bit and see if that changes the behaviour.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

I have removed this male, who was oldest one in the tank and replaced him with the youne one. And now no more fights or dead guppies


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## RevoBuda (Sep 3, 2011)

...until those boys reach sexual maturity...


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