hurt longfin barbs/stopping aggression

Question
Hi Christie, hope you can help! This is a two parter. I just started keeping fish a few months ago. My husband bought me a new tank from walmart because of it's new improved bio-filter. I personal thoughts are, new and improved to kill your fish faster than ever before, after what we have been through. If I was to ever give advise it would be "Get a proper filtration system the first time". So, our ten gallon tank is ready to go. The ph is high right off the get. The guy at the pet store says go with longfin barbs they like the high ph. We get three, almost immediately one of the fish dies. Being my first fish and not knowing better I let him die in the tank, before removing. The next day one of the last two remaining die. I am down to one. It took months to get the water back to proper levels, water changes every other day, added wood, live plantings, whatever it took and my one remaining fish lived. "Normie" we call him has somehow thrived, grown but lonely. We decided to get three more longfin barbs for him to play with. One was almost comparable size and two smaller so Normie would stay the dominant, which we wanted as after all, it is his tank. The was no problem acclimating them into the tank, Normie seemed very excited to see them. His colour changed to a deeper reddich colour along his sides and he was swimming back and forth excitedly. As soom as they came out of the bag, Normie zeroed in on the one of comparible size, which turned out to be a girl explaining his sudden colour change. He chased her around the tank to near exhaustion, when she tried to hide he would nip her fins. When she couldn't swim any more he turned his attention to the other two. He took several good nips out of them as well. When one began showing signs of dying, extreme stress, I removed all three from the tank into a bucket actually as I didn't have another tank. We put a good amount of Normies tank water in with them along with an arator and heater. We lost the smallest one but the other two seemed ok. It took a couple of days before getting another tank set up. Now the remaining two are in a twenty gallon tank, are eating well and swimming remarkably well. One has only superficial wounds on his back tail, the female however is considerably worse off. Normie took almost all of her fins except her top long fin, she has no tailfin at all. I put an extra dose of cycle in the water to help them heal. They don't seem to be stressed at all and are all over the tank. What else can I do to help ensure they survive? And how can I stop Normies aggresiveness? would bigger fish than him help or would they gang up on him? He is so lonely!

Answer
Hi Lisa
How high is your ph?  That fish store guy....barbs actually prefer a lower ph in the 6.5-7.0 range,..BUT, most fish including yours should be fine in a ph range of 6.0-8.0. They may not necessarily breed if the ph is higher, but they should survive just fine.
What kind of barbs are they-long fin tiger or long fin rosy barbs?  Not that it really matters, it's just that tiger barbs are known to be somewhat aggressive and fin nippers.  And rosy barbs are a bit more peaceful.  

Barbs are generally active fish, and should be kept in larger groups, around 5-8.  A larger tank and a larger group of them may help, but it's hard to say for sure.  If not, you'd probably be best taking him back to the store if he's that bad.  Doesn't sound like he's too lonely if he's attacking all the new fish :)

For the injured one, I've found that MelaFix and PimaFix are pretty good at treating injuries like that.  They're both an herbal remedy, safe for all fish, and can be used together.  Usually MelaFix is sufficient enough to use with fin/tail injuries, but yours sounds pretty bad that's why I'd recommend the PimaFix also.  Plus, they're good things to have on hand anyway.  If the one's injuries are that bad, she may not make it, but if she's acting fine and eating, that's a good sign.  

Christy