Ending Quarantine Early Because of Aggression?

[Troy328]

Hello, everyone. So, I've been quarantining 8 Cherry Barbs in a 10 gallon tank for two weeks now. In the first 24 hours, I unfortunately lost two fish, with no notable signs of any illness, and replaced them with two more the next day to keep the group at 8. So technically it's been like 13 days since the last time I added fish.

 

I believe what happened is my cycle crashed, or it was not ready to handle the new fish, because I noticed a jump in nitrites shortly after I added the fish. This would also explain why the first two passed without any noticeable issues beforehand. Fortunately, everyone else has been doing well ever since. The cycle has been repaired, I have no ammonia or nitrites, and the nitrates are building back up again. I actually watched two of the barbs spawn, I saw them scatter eggs and everything! Very exciting stuff. But now there's a new problem.

 

Lately, the barbs have been showing aggression towards each other. Specifically, there's one male that is aggressively chasing the other male and 6 females. The others will sometimes snap at each other, and while there's hiding space in the tank, I know a big issue is that they are in too small of a tank. It doesn't seem like the mating behavior I initially observed, it seems like they are becoming territorial.

 

The tank they will be going into has a lot more hiding places, and it's a 20 gallon. It only has a few kuhli loaches in it. I want to do this quarantine thing right, but the barbs seem to be chasing a lot and stressing each other out, but otherwise appear to be in good health. Lots of energy, good color, nothing wrong that I can see externally. I'm worried about them stressing each other out in such a tight space, though. I wish I had quarantined them in a bigger tank, but the 10 gallon is all I have besides my main tank.

 

Any tips on how to help with their aggression? At what point is it better to end quarantine early to save themselves the stress? Is two weeks alright? I'd appreciate any opinions on the subject.

[DaveO]

I would add plants or other line of sight decorations to the tank. Maybe borrow something from your main tank to put in there. Just something for the fish to dive behind when nessisary. Maybe a slate tile leaned up in the corner or something.