Green Tiger Barb Breeding Guide

Breeding the green tiger barb, a selectively bred colour morph of Puntigrus tetrazona with wild-type egg-scattering reproduction.

Overview

The green tiger barb is a selectively bred dark-bodied colour morph of Puntigrus tetrazona, not a separate species. Wikipedia lists green tiger barbs among the colour morphs produced through selective breeding. Its breeding biology matches the wild tiger barb: an egg-scattering free spawner with no parental care.

Sexing

Females are larger with rounder bellies; males are smaller, slimmer and more intensely coloured, the wild form showing a red nose and a red line above the dorsal fin. The species reaches sexual maturity at about 2 to 3 cm total length, around six to seven weeks old.

Conditioning

Condition the adults on small live, frozen and quality dried foods until the females are clearly gravid. Well-conditioned females can spawn at roughly two-week intervals.

Breeding Setup

Use a separate, dimly lit spawning tank with mature water. Protect the eggs with mesh, plastic grass matting or glass marbles, or with fine-leaved plants such as Taxiphyllum species or spawning mops. Add an air-powered sponge filter or air stone. Keep the pH slightly acidic to neutral and the temperature toward the upper end of the range, about 24 to 26 °C.

Spawning Behavior & Trigger

Introduce a gravid female with one or two males; spawning usually follows the next morning, typically among plants in the early morning. A mature female may release several hundred adhesive eggs, with around 300 per spawn typical and up to about 500 recorded; eggs average roughly 1.18 mm. The adults eat any eggs they find once finished, so remove them at once.

Egg & Fry Care

Eggs hatch in about 24 to 48 hours and the fry become free-swimming roughly 24 hours later. Feed infusoria-grade food for the first few days, then move on to microworm, Artemia nauplii and similar foods.

Common Challenges

Egg predation by the parents is the main hurdle. The green colour is fixed through selective breeding within the species and is not a hybrid or genetically modified trait.