# sexing cherry barbs question....



## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

weird.. You might have all males.. But I've never had purple black? Some do turn purple red but never black.

I've kept cherries most of my life. Are you sure you have cherry barbs? Pictures?

It's pretty simple, males are red, females are tan.


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

mistergreen couldn't have put it any better.

Males are cherry red, females are reddish tan. Completely different if you ask me.

I've never heard of or seen black before. Or purple for that matter. Just REALLY bright red.

Do you have pics? They sound like ruby barbs as far as the coloring goes.


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## PlantN0ob (May 18, 2008)

From my experience, the males are cherry red but during courtship they will turn a dark dark almost black/red color. The females are orange and have red marks on their cheeks.

Male









Female


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

fishbguy1 said:


> I've never heard of or seen black before. Or purple for that matter. Just REALLY bright red.


Yeah, if you find a good deep purple red one, buy it.. They're completely beautiful. It's rare though, good genes.


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## cwilfinger (Jul 8, 2008)

here are the pics.... first pic is when I bought them
next two pics are the two males that have gotten darker


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

yeah, those are the purple red (wine red) I'm talking about.

you have all males there. You can get some females at petsmart.. They're the beige, tan ones.


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## seAdams (Jun 2, 2008)

If your tank is not big enough to accomodate 12 - 14 females, I would take back 3 of the males and get 6 - 8 females.

You need at least 2 females for every male, since the males harass the females relentlessly, so you need more to spread out the burden on them!


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

I wouldn't worry too much about the male, female ratio. The planted tank will give the female cover. And the males will chase each other too. They're not as aggressive as the other barbs sp.


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## cwilfinger (Jul 8, 2008)

They are the only fish that I have in the 55 gal tank that you see in my signature. I started adding plants to the tank about 2 weeks ago and added the last one a few days ago. I added the 5 barbs to start the cycling on the tank about a week ago. I had gone to my local mom and pop store and got all of the cherry barbs that he had. They just happen to be all males I guess. They do a lot of chasing each other and quite a lot of fin flapping also. As soon as the tank finishes cycling, I'll add some females. I do not want to add anymore fish at the moment. I have about 80 cherry shrimps in the tank along with 5 amano shrimps and I am watching the water parameters really closely. I do not want to loose them because I added more fish and threw everything off in the tank.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

they don't produce that much waste.. Hope they don't eat baby shrimps. I think they will.


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