Meenu

Umm... one of my male guppies' tale seems to be trimmed. It's shorter than it was yesterday, but still perfectly shaped. The water is still 0,0,5, and it's been that way for over 6 weeks, since the tank cycled.

If he was being nipped at by the danios, wouldn't the tail be scraggly? It's really perfectly shaped. And I haven't seen any nippiness....

help, please?

Shawnie

if theres no signs of finrot (black tips) , it probably is either someone nipping him or could he have got caught in the filter intake?

Meenu

The filter intake has a guard, I thought about that first. And there's no black ends, so maybe not fin rot?... I just would have expected a ripped look rather than a perfect fan. I can't believe this. *sigh* I really need to figure out a way to get the danios back to the store.

Do you think it's the danios, or could it be the other 2 guppies?

Shawnie

My guess from my experiences, is its totally the guppies..mine were ALL ripped fins until i had the 1m-3-4f ratio ..an all male tank just didnt work for me..and maybe if i tried it on a larger tank, it might have..but IMO I doubt it..its in there nature to like the gals and just too much testosterone for an all male tank LOL ... ..but its only from my end ..could be any of them I guess...and im sure other members will have more suggestions..good luck!

Meenu

Thanks for your help, Shawnie. I'm going to remove the danios from the equation and add the neon tetras, and then just keep a close eye on things. Hopefully it stops - if it gets worse, I'll rehome the guppies (they are my son's faves, so I don't want it to come to that). I don't want to add females - I don't want the fry, and to accomodate 3 boy gupps, I'd have to add like 9 girls, which is more fish than I want.

My LFS closes at 2 today, so my husband is going to try to take the danios in tomorrow.

Shawnie

I hope it works out ok!!
if not, you can put in 5-6 gals and be ok IMO ..fry you wont have to worry if you do nothing about them ....they get eaten fast..but I do understand if thats not something you wish to witness...with the danios gone, you could be ok with 9 guppies (m/f combined) your cories for the bottom, and your neons to break it up a bit....I have the same setup but instead of cories, I have a pair of bn plecs growing up in there...

Meenu

so, 30 gallon long tank:
6 cories (considering taking it up to 8)
6 guppy girls
3 guppy boys
9 neon tetras

I was considering getting 2 honey sunset gouramis eventually - too much? And I guess the black mollies would be out...

and i'm worried about the kids' reaction if they see the babies get eaten... I'll have to think about this.

Diggly

I think the babies are usually eaten so fast that it would be hard to catch them. You could just keep them away from the tank when the girls start getting very close to having the fry and say they were constipated or something if you believe it would upset them.

redlessi

In my case it was the opposite. I did nothing when my females were ready to drop and now I have a bijillion fry. They dont even hide and it seems that none of the fish go after them or anything. It is the funniest thing when you look at the tank and see these grey dots darting about. I even removed most of the hiding places to deter so many fry but to no avail. I started in a 35 gal and now they are in the 72 gallon. I have resorted to giving them away via craigslist. Its true that each fish is different.

crazedACD

LOL, when I read the thread title I thought you want to "trim" the guppy's tail, like with scissors .

Meenu

lol... it's as if the guppy got a haircut for christmas. maybe one of the fish is an aspiring hair dresser... or "tail" dresser?

GoGreen

Would it be possible to just have your 6 female guppies together? Or would they develop an aggressive ringleader? My two grown platies are both female, they only reason I have a baby platy is because I think one was pregnant when I brought it home, I have heard this can happen. Anyway, if you just kept the females then you would have plenty of room for more cories. Of course, those male guppies may be the more colourful ones, plus if you are attached to them that does make it a hard decision.