Tinfoil Barb gang

[Tanked]

I have a 65gl community tank that I have been wanting to plant forever. All I have to do is: remove the Silver Dollars from the 65, and put them into the Tinfoil Barb tank, add plants to the 65 right? Both being peaceful community fish this was suppose to work.

Hours after the SDs were removed and the first plants were installed I began noticing that the Barb tank began looking really crowded.  I only added 3 Silver Dollars, so that was not possible.  The normally quiet Barb tank had become a free for all.  For about 30 minutes I watched from a distance as the Barbs chased the SDs, all over the tank, sometimes one on one and sometimes three or four on one.  It was fascinating to watch until the Barbs began pile driving the SDs into the substrate.  As the lights shut down for the night I began pulling the new plants out of the 65 and putting the Silver Dollars back in.  Everyone is fine today, but I still don't have a planted tank.  I think that removing the Silver Dollars was the right thing to do.

The one good thing:  The fish are easier to net in the dark with a flashlight on one end of the tank.

 

[Colu]

I have seen people have success with plants and silver dollars when feeding them a very high proportion of vegetable matter in they diet and using tough plants like anubis and Javan fern some quick growing floating plants like water lettuce and duckweed  plants like Hornwort and vallisneria you could use the co-op easy planters to protect help protect the plants till they get established

Edited December 6, 2021 by Colu