Gold barb

Water parameters

Tolerated range for this species. Aim for the middle of each band rather than the extremes.

Tank and habitat

Substrate: any.

Behavior

Plant interaction: plant safe.

Feeding

Eats everything offered without hesitation. Flake, pellets, frozen bloodworm, frozen brine shrimp, frozen daphnia, blanched vegetables, algae. An easy fish to feed. They pick food from the surface, midwater, and substrate. Not competitive or aggressive at feeding time. Feed twice daily. The gold body color intensifies with a varied diet; carotenoid-rich foods (brine shrimp, spirulina) make the biggest difference.

Compatibility

• Peaceful, hardy schooling barb that works in almost any community setup. One of the least problematic barbs available, with no nipping behavior even in small groups.
• Groups of 6+ bring out the best color and schooling behavior. Males compete for female attention by intensifying their gold coloration.
• Good with tetras, rasboras, corydoras, gouramis, and other barbs. Tolerates cooler water (18–24°C), making it compatible with subtropical species like white cloud mountain minnows and peppered corys.
• Shrimp-safe with adult shrimp. The mouth is too small to eat adult cherry shrimp, though very small shrimplets may be picked at.

Origin and habitat

Barbodes semifasciolatus is a hardy barb from southeastern Asia, native to the Red River basin and nearby fresh waters across southern China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and northern Vietnam, where it lives in slow rivers, streams, and reservoirs with plenty of plant cover. Gunther described it in 1868, and the species has bounced through several genus names, Barbus, Puntius, and Capoeta, before Kottelat tentatively placed it in Barbodes in 2013. Wild fish are silvery-green with a dark lateral stripe and partial vertical barring, which is the source of the species name and its reference to incomplete banding. The familiar bright gold aquarium fish, often sold as Schubert's or schuberti barb, was developed in the 1960s by the American hobbyist Thomas Schubert; long suspected of being a separate species, it is now treated as a selectively bred colour form of the wild green fish. This is a subtropical species that prefers the cooler end of the tropical range, which makes it a good match for unheated or lightly heated tanks. Adults reach about 7 cm.

Breeding

A simple egg-scattering free spawner with no parental care, and one of the easier barbs to breed at home. A conditioned pair spawns in the morning over fine-leaved plants or a spawning mop, scattering on the order of a hundred slightly sticky eggs. The adults eat the eggs readily, so they should be removed once spawning finishes. Water chemistry is not demanding; soft or moderately hard both work. The eggs hatch in about a day and a half, the fry become free-swimming a couple of days later, and they take baby brine shrimp as a first food. Growth is quick.

Common problems

There is very little to go wrong with this fish; it is among the toughest in the hobby and rarely sick in a stable tank. New arrivals may carry ich, which clears with standard treatment. Faded gold colour is usually a diet issue and improves on frozen and carotenoid-rich foods rather than dry food alone. In groups smaller than five or six they can turn to occasional fin-nipping, so a proper school keeps them well-behaved and is the simple fix. Because they prefer cooler water, sustained warm temperatures above the mid-twenties suit them poorly. Otherwise they are a reliable, long-lived schooling fish.

Bioload

Further reading

• How to cycle a fish tank
• Stocking ideas by tank size