Guppy Bullies

I noticed that over the past couple of days that two of my guppies are chasing the slightly smaller one around. I just looked at his tail and they have nipped it so badly It's shredded. The poor thing is terrified, cowering in the corner and tries to hide behind my hand when I had my hand in the tank.

I've had good results using melafix to heal torn fins, so I will try that. Is there anything I can / should do to stop my other two guppies from harrassing the poor little guy? He's been in the tank for about 3 weeks and everything was fine until a day or two ago.

His tail was beautiful and flowing but now it's totally shredded

 

What are the sexes of the fish? Need to be 2:1 female/male ratio. Too many males will result in very aggressive behavior.

 

They're all males but they were fine together up until yesterday. I hadn't seen any aggressive behaviour, whatsoever. The only thing that has happened is one of my platies had fry.. I don't know if that's got anything to do with it ???

 

Are the fry in the tank with all the others? Because if so they will be eaten. It could be territorial or could be dominance issue since the aggressors are larger than the smaller one. If all male then sex shouldn't the problem. What size is the tank?

 

The tank is 20 gallons. Yeah the fry are in the tank with the other fish because I had no idea the platy was pregnant (I only have female platies and I've had her for 40 days). I can't get the fry out because they're too quick. Most of them are hiding under an ornament and the other fish don't seem that interested, as in they don't go around looking for them.

It's odd with the guppies because the bullies have always been bigger than this little one but have acted this way only since the platy fry were born.
The way the little one is atm, I don't think he will be around for much longer. He's shaking and looks like a nervous wreck.. I have to do something, but not sure what?

 

While he's injured and weak they will pick on him even more. Fish have survival of the fittest instincts and seek to eliminate the weak ones. Is it possible to get another small tank for him to recover in by himself? How many fry did she have?

 

She didn't have many.. probably about 10.

The other thing that happened recently, is my sail-fin molly died. He was the biggest and was king of the tank. I googled 'guppy bullying' and came up with this;

Freshwater Pecking Order 2/22/06
Thank you so much for your prompt advice. I now seem to have a new problem. The death of my (slightly aggressive) male molly seems to have upset the pecking order in the tank. My three male guppies used to get along swimmingly, hanging around together as a defense against getting picked on (presumably). With the molly gone, the two biggest guppies are turning on the smallest and bullying him, and he is losing his beautiful tail, not to mention the fact that he no longer swims with the other two. I understand the behaviour, but don't know what to do. He will be gone by the time I quarantine another fish to help balance out the aggression.

From

I would say that's the problem as the circumstances in my tank are almost identical. I rearranged the tank and did 20% water change but it made no difference. I can isolate the little one temporarily while he recovers, but I guess for the long term I will need to get another molly or something bigger than them.

 

Yeah that looks exactly like what happened, yeah either bigger fish or maybe even more male guppies could work. But either way will need him to recover before being put with anymore.

 

They seem to have come to some kind of 'compromise'. Jerry, the little one, is allowed one small part of the tank which includes a cave. But if he goes anywhere else in the tank they chase him away. He does seem a little happier though, nowhere near as nervous looking.

I was a couple of smaller guppies? Mollies aren't that common in the stores here for some reason - it may be hard to find one big enough. They definitely need to be put in their place though LOL.

 

If not mollies try for platies, or more male guppies, sometimes getting more will help reduce their aggressiveness, the tank is big enough so doesn't seem like too crowded. I think since the molly died, they may be trying to claim her territory, while leaving the injured a small corner.

 

The bullied guppy's tail started healing really well, so I bought another male guppy and a high-fin platy and that seems to have restored the pecking order in the tank. The guppies are getting along great and his tail is almost better- it's actually longer in places than it originally was.

 

Great read and timing. We recently brought 5 cute little guppies home for our tank and they have been doing great (minus themt hinking the poor little mickey mouse blue platy is a female guppy. ).

This morning I found one of them dead and stuck tot he filter and all of his fins have been shredded from his body. After observing the fish in the tank I think I have figured out that it is one guppy in particular that is being a bully...maybe even another one I'm not too sure about.

The one that I have seen to be a bully also harasses the female Blue Mickey Mouse Platy we have as well. He will not leave her the **** alone.

 

Just got a few new fish, another corey and 5 guppies.

The problem is, one of the male guppies is chasing after the male platy for some reason...

He's only been there 10 minutes tops... what are they doing?

ADDE The platy has been here for around 20 days already so...


Update: Aaaand they seem to have stopped. Was it the 'welcome to the tank' power struggle?

 

nothing but general curiosity I believe!

 

HI Llama, I added a couple of guppies to my 30 gallon and the guppies that were already there attacked the 2 new guys mercilessly.
At first I thought it was a power play to show the new guys whose boss.
I ended up having to move the 2 new gups. One of them sustained a serious injury when he was pulled now by his pictoral fin.

As with tank, it depends on the fish, they'll either calm down or they won't. Mine didn't.

 

Hmm, that's worrying.

They're allright at the moment, ignoring each other and when they pass by each other they're not attacking each other or anything.

I just hope they don't hurt the female platty, I'm pretty attached to her.

I'll give them an earlier lights-out today, so I can see what happens during the night.

 

Boy, Liama-you are having your problem's with your fish, lol same as me. It gets confusing and thank the Lord we have FishLore-good luck Liama-bella

 

Hmm, that's worrying.

They're allright at the moment, ignoring each other and when they pass by each other they're not attacking each other or anything.

I just hope they don't hurt the female platty, I'm pretty attached to her.

I'll give them an earlier lights-out today, so I can see what happens during the night.

It sounds like you'll be ok. Believe me, mine was an all out attack. If it were some chasing and a few nips here and there even over the course of a few hours, I would have waited it out.

Just keep an eye on things.

 

It gets confusing and thank the Lord we have FishLore-good luck Liama-bella

And to think the original reason I joined was because I had a minor problem with setting up my filter... now I'm on it as soon as I turn the PC on.

All clear at the moment, lets hope they don't start scrapping as soon as I turn the lights off.

Really want to get a pic of the new guppy, but he moves too fast.

 

I have a 10gal planted tank. I have Red Cherry Shrimp and I had 4 male Fancy Guppies. One disappeared. I looked everywhere. In the tank and outside and he was there one night and not there the next evening. Anyway, everyone used to get along well but now two of them are picking on the third. They never did this (that I saw) when there were four. What do I do. I distract them with food but I don't want to foul my tank.

 

I would get another one. I have found that my guppies do not get along when kept in odd numbers.

 

id get another one. when kept in small odd numbers they will team up against the weakest one.
try to get a new one before they stress out the other guppy too much.

 

At one time I had guppys and experianced the same problem. I learned to have more than 3. I increased them to 5 to 8 and never had the problem again that I ever noticed
Thanks

 

Please understand that what I am writing here is not meant to be in any way a judgment of how you have been taking care of your tanks. We all have had very rough times, and I actually am in the middle of a huge mess that goes back to when I got my fish from a source with health issues. So I know what it is like to live with a huge amount of stress due to unhappy fish.

It is actually really important just take a step back and look at the overall water situation in the tank. It appears that you have three tanks that were started all in the month of July, you do not use a quarantine tank, the pH is too low for guppies, and the water readings look like you do not have a cycle going. Your profile information is showing that otos are also in this tank, but it looks like you don't have them now. Please let us know if any of this is outdated information.

What this all adds up to is too much stress for the guppies. They are extremely hardy fish and can live with very imperfect water, but little bits of stress from different sources can all grow together and become too great.

Just by being fancy guppies, they have a lot of stress that their wild brothers do not have. He hitched tails and fins slow down their swimming, making it very hard to do them to do the kind of agile maneuvers required in an all-male tank. Poor swimming ability hampers the formation of a livable group situation. The word pecking order does not really express how large groups of males live together. It is not simply a matter of one being higher or lower than the other since a more equal swimming situation will give allow four or five boys to have face offs, meaning that they are all at the same social level. Face-offs can only be done by boys whose tails are small enough to allow them to swim backwards. This is the basic reason why one has to keep very few fancy guppies and an all boy tank and why I do not recommend mixing them with male Endler's and wild type guppies. (I am the woman who has 9 single-sex Endler tanks over the years, so I do know what I'm talking about here.)

So before you jump the gun and get another male guppy, I would recommend that you try the following first.

1) double check your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings to make sure that there are no spikes going on and causing stress. Dose the water with Amquel plus if necessary to get the numbers down rather than doing a huge water change.

2) gradually increase the hardness of the water in this Tank to a pH level of 7.5 - 8 (KH of 10–20)

3) reduce stress in different ways. I do not know your regular habits, so the following suggestions are merely shots in the dark. Ideas for changes: cleaning in a less aggressive way (if you have been vacuuming at all, which is generally less needed in this type of tank), changing the way they are fed, and taking other tank mates out (such as otos if they are there)

4) a temporary fix for them, so that they will
not hurt each other, is to put in tank dividers.

Finally, the reasons why I advise that you do not run out and get another male guppy: you do not have a quarantine tank and so have no control over what bacteria is already in there or that might come in with a new fish. I always say that getting new fish is like looking for love in a bar. It is hard not to buy lovely new fish, but we have to protect the ones we already have at home. Some level of protection is achieved by getting a quarantine tank set up and going through that process slowly.

Wishing the best for you and your fish in all your endeavors.

 

Please understand that what I am writing here is not meant to be in any way a judgment of how you have been taking care of your tanks. We all have had very rough times, and I actually am in the middle of a huge mess that goes back to when I got my fish from a source with health issues. So I know what it is like to live with a huge amount of stress due to unhappy fish.

It is actually really important just take a step back and look at the overall water situation in the tank. It appears that you have three tanks that were started all in the month of July, you do not use a quarantine tank, the pH is too low for guppies, and the water readings look like you do not have a cycle going. Your profile information is showing that otos are also in this tank, but it looks like you don't have them now. Please let us know if any of this is outdated information.

What this all adds up to is too much stress for the guppies. They are extremely hardy fish and can live with very imperfect water, but little bits of stress from different sources can all grow together and become too great.

Just by being fancy guppies, they have a lot of stress that their wild brothers do not have. He hitched tails and fins slow down their swimming, making it very hard to do them to do the kind of agile maneuvers required in an all-male tank. Poor swimming ability hampers the formation of a livable group situation. The word pecking order does not really express how large groups of males live together. It is not simply a matter of one being higher or lower than the other since a more equal swimming situation will give allow four or five boys to have face offs, meaning that they are all at the same social level. Face-offs can only be done by boys whose tails are small enough to allow them to swim backwards. This is the basic reason why one has to keep very few fancy guppies and an all boy tank and why I do not recommend mixing them with male Endler's and wild type guppies. (I am the woman who has 9 single-sex Endler tanks over the years, so I do know what I'm talking about here.)

So before you jump the gun and get another male guppy, I would recommend that you try the following first.

1) double check your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings to make sure that there are no spikes going on and causing stress. Dose the water with Amquel plus if necessary to get the numbers down rather than doing a huge water change.

2) gradually increase the hardness of the water in this Tank to a pH level of 7.5 - 8 (KH of 10–20)

3) reduce stress in different ways. I do not know your regular habits, so the following suggestions are merely shots in the dark. Ideas for changes: cleaning in a less aggressive way (if you have been vacuuming at all, which is generally less needed in this type of tank), changing the way they are fed, and taking other tank mates out (such as otos if they are there)

4) a temporary fix for them, so that they will
not hurt each other, is to put in tank dividers.

Finally, the reasons why I advise that you do not run out and get another male guppy: you do not have a quarantine tank and so have no control over what bacteria is already in there or that might come in with a new fish. I always say that getting new fish is like looking for love in a bar. It is hard not to buy lovely new fish, but we have to protect the ones we already have at home. Some level of protection is achieved by getting a quarantine tank set up and going through that process slowly.

Wishing the best for you and your fish in all your endeavors.

. My tanks were used & I didn't loose bacteria while moving them. My research said Ph should be 6.8-7.8 mine is 7.2. I do water changes weekly and test my water every few days. I use Prime. I have plants & everyone writes that they keep my Nitrates down even after beating the bottle to death. My Oto is doing fine. I understand about Quarantine tanks but I've been keeping fish for about 20 years, Freshwater & Saltwater and never had one. I had very large tanks in the past so my small ones are new to me & I've never done live plants & Dirted tanks. But I also believe that you're never too old to learn so that's why I'm on this website trying new things. BTW the two boys with the shorter tales are picking on the big guy with the big beautiful tale. But they're going after his body.

 

The other two boys are going after his body because they hope he is a girl, and he can't do anything about it because his tail is too unwieldy

Otos are very problematic for many reasons. You can find recent threads here about them.

I know absolutely zero about saltwater tanks. They just seem way too complex for me to even think of taking on
Guppies are supposed to be easy, but I find them actually very demanding of my attention LOL

 

The other two boys are going after his body because they hope he is a girl, and he can't do anything about it because his tail is too unwieldy

Otos are very problematic for many reasons. You can find recent threads here about them.

I know absolutely zero about saltwater tanks. They just seem way too complex for me to even think of taking on
Guppies are supposed to be easy, but I find them actually very demanding of my attention LOL

. Saltwater tanks are a pain but they do have beautiful fish. I've always had Otos. I think they are the best algae eaters out there and don't take up very much space. However everyone always goes and gets those big Plecostomus. One came with my tank. I'm waiting for my sisters tank to rehome it.

 

I've heard it's very easy for disease to spread without a QT, especially in saltwater where the fish are worth a fortune compared to fresh water.

 

I've heard it's very easy for disease to spread without a QT, especially in saltwater where the fish are worth a fortune compared to fresh water.

. It's possible but I'm old-school I did fish for about 20 years. We didn't have QT tanks when I started & I never brought home sick fish. But then again we never used to cycle a tank either. We used to get the tank put water in it put the de-chlorinator in it and the next day put the fish in it. However I do make sure that the fish I get have been in the store for a few days and I look at the tank they're coming out of very closely. Now I'm going to have to look around so I can knock on wood

 

When my brother put 3 male guppies into his Platy tank the guppies tried to breed with every other fish in there, male or female platy. They were trying to dancing approach and the sneaky darting assault they will do.

I wonder if in such a small group all that mating drive ends up focused on the smallest male and he gets hounded to death. Not as a male pecking order thing but as a hormonal gotta-mate-with-something situation.

 

When my brother put 3 male guppies into his Platy tank the guppies tried to breed with every other fish in there, male or female platy. They were trying to dancing approach and the sneaky darting assault they will do.

I wonder if in such a small group all that mating drive ends up focused on the smallest male and he gets hounded to death. Not as a male pecking order thing but as a hormonal gotta-mate-with-something situation.

that's possible too but the two smaller males are picking on the big guy. I'll just get some girls and we'll have a party

 

I've got 3 male guppies 2 orange and one yellow in a 36g with fake and real plants, rocks and driftwood. The guppies are helping cycle the rank and have been in there for almost a week. They have been busy exploring and swimming all over. This morning I have noticed that the yellow guppy, who is accually the smallest, is following/chasing another one around. He will not leave him alone and nips at him constantly until the one being bullied turns and chases him away only to have him come back the second he turns around. The 3rd one of the 3 stays on the side of the tank where the air bubbler line comes in. He seems to like to peck away at the plastic line but will swim thru the tank once in awhile. If the bully spots him there he picks on him to. He just won't leave this particular orange one alone! It seemed they were all best buds up to now! I can't add more guppies due to the cycle process and I honestly don't want more guppies! Will he continue this chasing? Or what can I do?

 

I've got 3 male guppies 2 orange and one yellow in a 36g with fake and real plants, rocks and driftwood. The guppies are helping cycle the rank and have been in there for almost a week. They have been busy exploring and swimming all over. This morning I have noticed that the yellow guppy, who is accually the smallest, is following/chasing another one around. He will not leave him alone and nips at him constantly until the one being bullied turns and chases him away only to have him come back the second he turns around. The 3rd one of the 3 stays on the side of the tank where the air bubbler line comes in. He seems to like to peck away at the plastic line but will swim thru the tank once in awhile. If the bully spots him there he picks on him to. He just won't leave this particular orange one alone! It seemed they were all best buds up to now! I can't add more guppies due to the cycle process and I honestly don't want more guppies! Will he continue this chasing? Or what can I do?

I hate fish that are bullies! I also had trouble with one of my livebearers, a female marigold variatus platy. She was overly aggressive; she flared her fins at any of the other platies and even hunted down my poor male marigold just so she could attack him.

I was seriously considering returning her, but I wanted to try something. I had a diy fry container that attached to the rI'm of my tank. I netted the troublesome platy and placed her in the container and left her their overnight. Next day, I released her back into the tank and haven't seen ANY aggression from her since.

 

I thought about some kind of a "time out" container floating in the tank! But then I thought....I don't think its possible to discipline a fish! LOL! Maybe it is? ;D
I'm afraid he is going to really stress out the other 2. But as I was leaving for work I watched them for awhile again and the 2 orange ones seemed to be sticking together more and if the yellow one tried to bully either one, they would both chase him away. But he still keeps coming back. Is this odd behavior for guppies? Its not like they are having to share a small space!

 

Sometimes it's their way of establishing a pecking order and then they settle down. It's happened with my guppies too. You can use a time-out breeder/container. I've never used one myself but I hear it helps too.

 

Ive had mean platies and mollies so I would put them into a small net (breeder cage thing) and leave them there for a week. They calmed down and then they were best buds again with everyone

 

Oh geez! Its like I have to ground him! That's almost funny if I didn't feel bad for the others! I am going to have to figure out a way to put him in a corner for awhile! Once again I am an hour away from a LFS so I will have to come up with a alternative idea

 

Ok cool good luck !!

 

I had a bully Molly, she's still around just shaped up! I put her in a 3 way breeder alone whenever she bit my other fishes tails. Hopefully you don't lose any fish like me good luck!

 

Oh geez! Its like I have to ground him! That's almost funny if I didn't feel bad for the others! I am going to have to figure out a way to put him in a corner for awhile! Once again I am an hour away from a LFS so I will have to come up with a alternative idea

just an idea....but could you rig something up with a disposable food container cut up to make a frame, then pull a bit of clean pantyhose over it (I've seen people do such things as a DIY breeder box) Those two things you should be able to get at a store closer to where you live.