The tiger barbs were placed until recently in the catch-all genera Barbus, Puntius, or Systomus. The long time overdue splitting of the Asian small barbs led to a placement of the deep-bodied tiger barbs in a genus on their own, Puntigrus. The type species of the genus is P. partipentazona.
We were able to import this pretty species of tiger barb once more wild collected from Vietnam. P. partipentazona can be differenciated on the first glimpse from its congeners (P. anchisporus, P. navjotsodhii, P. pulcher, and P. tetrazona) by the dark spot on the basis of the dorsal fin.
Keeping all tiger barbs is easy. No principal differences in their demands exist, and they all attain the same size (5-6 cm). It is very important to keep them in schools as large as possible. If a tiger barb gets bored, it will become a plague for all other tankmates and start nibbling on the fins of other fish. As a rule one should never keep tiger barbs along with fish that ave extraordinary long fins.
For our customers: the fish have code 370602 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusiovely supply the wholesale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
