Plecosaurous

I currently have 2 male swordtails in my tank, and one is becoming more and more aggressive. Even pushing my new Dwarf Gourami around. To reduce his aggression should I purchase females to keep him company? I have read they are a schooling fish, and if so what is a good number of swords to have, and what is the ratio between males to females that I should keep?
Thanks!
Kevin

iloveengl

Hi Kevin,
I do not believe swordtails are schooling fish. They're actually known to be rather aggressive with other males.

Similar to gups (and other livebearers) they need at least 2-3 females for every male in the tank; this is so they don't exhaust the females during mating, not because they're social butterflies. So you would have to get at least 4-6 females. And I'm not certain that would actually cut down on aggression.

Do you have room for adding that many fish? Do you have a plan for the inevitable babies? If they are still being aggressive, do you have a back-up plan?

This may not be fun to hear, but you may be better off re-homing one of the males.

ynaggo

How many times do you feed a day?

When fish get hungry sometimes they tend to get bully/nippy behaviour.