TigerBarb27

I have a 5 gallon tank with:3 tiger barbs,1 rainbow shark,and 1 pleco(I know its over stocked im going to get a bigger tank Sunday).The problem is when I turn on the light the tiger barbs go hide and when I turn it off they come out and play around.I taped some paper over the light to make it dimmer and they would come out but the paper would fall off after a while.So what do i do?

armadillo

We've got kind of the same problem with a nocturnal fish. What we do when the lights are off is we switch on a reading light on the side of the tank. That way, it's not too bright, but we can still see the fish.

capekate

The tiger barbs are not nocturnal fish so I really don't know why your fish are hiding when the light comes on. Unless they are afraid of the shark in the tank. Your tank is pretty small and they may feel stressed by the shark and pleco.

TigerBarb27

sometimes when the light comes on they come out but the shark chases them back into hiding so you might be right

Harley

i would also add a few more barbs in your tank because as soon as they come out of hiding there almost guaranted to start fighting and not stop. add more may help there confadence level too (sometimes i think of fish a humans for example i give fish timeouts when the nip a fin and it works!)