Shy Odessa Barbs?

I have a group of 20 Odessa barbs. They are my favorite fish in my aquarium. I chose them because they are gorgeous and active BUT my guys are shy. Maybe timid is the correct word. They swim away when anyone comes close to the tanks and they hang out mostly on the bottom. I was thinking this was due to my Angelfish being a bully, but when I removed him, there wasn't much change. I'm bummed, I should have bustling tank and you wouldn't even know there were 20 Odessas in there Any ideas? What are yours like?

 

Mine are not shy in the least. What size tank do you have? Plants , decor ??
I agree , they are among my favorites.

 

72 gallon, lots of (fake)plants and drift wood.

 

How long have you had them?

 

I got the group in 3 stages. The first 9 about 6 months ago, then 6 more about a month ago and the last 5 about a week ago.

 

Try walking into the room a bit slower and feed them just a teeny tiny bit every time. Just don’t feed too much.

The fish will associate you food and niceness.

If you walk slowly, the fish won’t think that you’re threat.

 

Ok, I will try that

 

Hm, something to note as well, I'm pretty sure I've trained all my fish to search and eat off the bottom of the aquarium. I just sprinkled some flakes in there and they all waited till they sunk. I have corys, BN plecos and frogs so I provide a lot of sinking foods. As noted in my original post, I also have a very dominant angel which consumes the upper foods. I'm pretty sure I'll be rehoming him, but I'm going to have to find a way to retrain them to swim up.

 

Strange. Have they always been that way?
Mine are not " friendly " towards anyone in the way that my Angels are but they certainly don't hide.
BTW - gold barbs look awesome with Odessa's. Similar size , activity level and mine loosely shoal together. Great combo.
Beautiful tank.

 

I think for most of the time I've had them, they've been shy. I'm trying to remember. Early on, my aquarium went through lots of changes, I upgraded (twice), lost and added many fish over the months. Its just sort of steadied. I've been doing this for about year now and it was very rocky in the beginning stages of learning. I kept increasing the numbers in hopes their confidence would build in numbers. I'm hoping in time it'll grow. Not much more will be changing in my aquarium right now except the removal of the angel. I think my very original crew was more confident.

I love golden barbs! I plan to increase my tank size in about a year to a year and a half and I'm going to add some.

 

It sounds counter productive too but you might consider adding another , slightly larger Angel. This would take the Angels focus off of the Odessas and let it focus on someone its own size. They might just become fast friends too.

 

I was actually mulling that idea over in my head....

 

I have an update! I'm pretty sure they were hiding and hanging out on the bottom because of the current my 2 aquaclears were producing. I also bought another angel ...HA! I have a problem. Anyways, the 2 angels are getting along amazingly so far. So my Odessas are out and my angels are becoming friends <3

 

IME, schooling fish get timid when there is a larger fish in there.

For the first 2 months of my tank, my rummynose and Cardinal tetras went to the surface to attack any food there. Even my finger.

Then, I added the discus and my tetras will only eat from the middle.
The discus don’t outcompete them, but my tetras are scared from the larger fish.

 

Hm, that could be a possibility. When I removed the angel briefly, there wasn't much change in the barbs behavior. When I adjusted my filters, they came out much more. They are still very shy of me ( no clue why, I'm always at the tank talking to them and feeding). So far, I keep seeing improvement, so that's a good thing.