A 95‐day experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of a visible implant elastomer tag (VIE) versus a coded wire tag (CWT) implanted in juvenile Tibet fish Oxygymnocypris stewartii (Lloyd, 1908; total length 5~7 cm) under laboratory conditions. Mortality, tag retention and growth in three groups of juvenile O. stewartii (VIE‐tagged, CWT‐tagged and control) in duplicate were determined in six indoor tanks (300‐L/tank volume, 100 fish/tank) at 15.6 ± 0.5°C water temperature. Results showed that neither tagging method had a significant difference on the mortality of the experimental fish, but that the growth rate in the VIE group was significantly lower than in the CWT and control groups. Mean tag retention in the VIE group was 95.2%, and 98.9% in the CWT group, with no significant differences in tag retention in the two methods. The study indicates that both VIE and CWT are suitable short‐term tagging methods for hatchery O. stewartii juveniles.