I have a guppy who is bullying a platy and I'm not sure what to do. I don't have many plants (getting some soon though) so rearranging isn't an option. Should I set up a fish jail?
Describe bullying. Fish chase fish. If it’s a mature male guppy, and a juvenile male platy, it’s for dominance. Mature male guppy and female platy, trying to breed. If no injuries, I wouldn’t worry. But knowing your entire stock would help. Sometimes just adding a couple more females will spread the aggression out so it doesn’t stress anyone.
Male guppy is chasing female platy around, I think the platy isn't quite to adulthood. I have a 36 gallon with 9 albino corys, 7 harlequin rasboras, 2 platys, a molly, guppy, and 2 zebra snails. And this has been going on for awhile, and I thought it would eventually stop.
If you want babies and stop the aggression, get a couple of female guppies. He’s just trying to breed.
Agreed, It's a boy-fish thing. He might 'chase' the females you add, but he won't be consistently harassing one specific live-bearer female all the time if you add more females. Though I wouldn't say it's bullying or even anything to be worried about...I have S/C cichlids and had left my oscar unfed for 2 days (had a stressful senior year and was living on caffeine and printer ink) so he decided to eat half of my fire-mouths tail. They're both fine and the firemouth has healed perfectly with no intervention needed....even if the male guppy is nipping, its normal for them and I wouldn't worry. You could potentially try to add more hiding spots for her, tall/bushy plants and such. But if you're planning on adding more fish, female guppies would probably resolve the issue. Maybe even adding female platy's might help. Though it's odd to begin with that the male guppy is adamantly chasing a female platy. I've heard they CAN cross but it's not common. At least not in my experience. Typically he'd ignore her because they're differing species. It could be you have the tank as a higher temp, and it's facilitating his breeding conditions. Male guppies are the dogs of the fish world. lol.
Platy and guppy cannot cross, Molly and guppy can (due to shape of gonopodium and species), muppy/golly offspring are sterile. He is trying to mate, sometimes they single out a fish (male or female) to harass because it is their preferred color to breed with (I have a male that is as pretty as the others but looks slightly different and one male is singling him out to try and breed with him).
