The Question Regarding Barbs

hey guise

With cardinals, glass cats, a pearl gourami, and a bunch of other peaceful, relatively inactive fish in my tank, I thought it would be a good idea to add some kind of barb in order to provide movement.

no not tiger barbs

I was considering between golden barbs and snakeskin/rhombo barbs, I want something that stays around the 2-3 inch range, is active, but peaceful and wouldn't eat my pearl's fins. I don't know if that's even possible when considering barbs but these two seemed pretty placid to me.

Things get more complicated when I see the names Puntius semifasciolatus and Puntius fachsi used interchangeably for the Gold Barb, where there seem to be two different species concerned (I'm not positive but it sure looks like it). Also, I've read contradictory information about the size of gold barbs, one source saying 5 inches and another saying 3. I've also read conflicting information which disputed over the temperament of snakeskins.

Basically, I'm just really confused about every single detail concerning gold and snakeskin barbs, and just wanted to know a bit of information about them as well as which would be more suitable for my tank. Incidentally, I'm leaning to the favor of golds if that helps.

Thanks,
Elodea

 

there are gold barbs and there are golden barbs, I believe. Gold barbs are P. SachiI (or something like that). They are fantastic fish - I've kept them with pearl gouramis for a while. They also did well with goldfish. 3 inches is the female size - 2 for males. They are excellent schoolers and are moderately active. I highly recommend them.

oops, sachiI is the cherry barb - semI is the gold

 

what about cherry barbs? I like mine a lot....active enough, but not like a danio. plus their pretty red color adds something to the tank. especially the males.

 

if the tank was big enough I would say get both cherry and gold barbs.

 

I think this is for a 55

 

Yeah I want to stick with a single school of maybe 6-8 barbs, since the main schooler will be cardinal tetras. I liked the golden barbs since they looked really cool and I thought gold would be a very good contrast to the blue and red presented by the cardinals as well as the greens, greys, and browns from the plants, rocks, and wood in the tank, as well as the fact that they are a lot more active than cardinals and add movement.

Jaysee when you said P. sachiI did you mean P. fachsi?

 

he did indeed. he corrected it above....in that post

 

I love my cherries! they are very interesting to watch. my females are getting fat!

 

also I happen to be somewhat against cherries for whatever reason, it's just an innate opinion just like how I hate all livebearers except Anableps

 

Seriously, the cherry barbs will make the red in the tetras POP