Tiger barbs as feeders?

**Trichopsis** · 14th Feb 2012, 01:06

I was at C328 last week when I saw 2 bags of smallish tiger barbs on the rack where the bags of feeder fishes and frogs are displayed. Wanted to grab a bag on a subsequent visit but both bags were gone.

How prevalent is this practice of selling tiger barbs as feeders? I also noticed that C328 was selling bags of flying barbs (Esomus metallicus), along with tiny baby and juvenile walking catfish (Clarias spp.). There were even feeder bettas (Betta splendens) and serpae tetra (Hyphessobrycon eques).

By the way, if anyone knows of any stores or fish farms selling feeder tiger barbs, do give me a heads-up. I guess it would be a cheap way to obtain a sizable shoal, with fishes that aren't exactly full-grown yet.

**stormhawk** · 15th Feb 2012, 04:05

The supply of feeder Tiger Barbs is not regular at C328. I saw them on two separate visits in December, though I did not see them the past few times I was there. The flying barbs and others are fairly common in supply. In fact some bags of the feeder Bettas contain some nice ones. There was once where they even had the Black Widow Tetra - Gymnocorymbus ternetzi - as feeders.

I think in your case, perhaps timing and luck is needed. Often, the bags are taken fairly quickly. The bags of Tiger Barbs that I saw, were taken just after I saw them.

**Trichopsis** · 16th Feb 2012, 22:07

Thanks stormhawk for the information!

I was at C328 earlier in the evening, and to my joy, there were 3 bags of feeder tiger barbs, selling at $6 per bag. Perfect! Naturally, I bought a bag, which contained around 32 small (total length ~2 cm) tiger barbs (very hard to count them when they're swimming all over the place).

Also, just a heads-up to anyone looking for nice zebra danios without the fancy colours or fins, C328 has 4 bags of mixed feeder wild-type (i.e. short-finned) zebra and 'leopard' danios.

**Trichopsis** · 17th Feb 2012, 15:16

Did a proper count this morning, turns out that there was a total of 51 young tiger barbs in the bag.

And they're all in excellent health! It's a darn shame that they're being sold as feeders. Anyone who wants a nice large shoal of small tiger barbs, and has the space to provide for them as they grow up, it's really quite a bargain.

**Trichopsis** · 5th Mar 2012, 10:37

Besides the bags of feeder tiger barbs at C328, I was at Aqua Star in Yishun yesterday and saw small tiger barbs for sale at 80 cents each.

**pufferlover** · 6th Mar 2012, 11:30

Not surprise that its sold as feeder as even mandai long kang we could catch a bag full of tiger barbs .

**taizi** · 13th Mar 2012, 18:15

they are my previous feeders before i change over to mp...

**Trichopsis** · 14th Mar 2012, 00:37

pufferlover: Interesting, I knew that tiger barbs (Systomus tetrazona) were present in some reservoirs because they've been used as bioindicators of water quality in floating enclosures; some of them have most likely escaped and established breeding populations in the reservoirs. There is also supposedly another species of non-native tiger barb, the five-banded tiger barb (Systomus partipentazona), that is present in Singapore. The ones you caught at Mandai could have belonged to this more uncommon species.

taizi: What is mp?