55 Gallon Tank Male Rainbow fish being too aggressive

I’ve had my group of 6 rainbow fish for a few months now and my male turquoise get too aggressive when he’s amped and colored up for the day. There’s 6 total, 4 female millenniums, a male millennium and a male turquoise. What should I do to counteract this aggression? I’m going to temporarily use a divider to keep the turquoise away but I’m not sure what to do if it keeps on.

 

The Turqoise rainbow is stressed, he needs to be in a school with other turquoise rainbows, rehome him or get 6-8 more turquoise rainbows.

 

The Turqoise rainbow is stressed, he needs to be in a school with other turquoise rainbows, rehome him or get 6-8 more turquoise rainbows.

Would it be okay if I just got 2 or 3 females instead? If not I’ll just rehome and try to find another millennium

 

The more turquoise rainbows that you add, the more likely that his stress from being the only one of his species will be relieved. I dont know if add 2 or 3 will help or if you will just end up with more stressed fish. It could go either way. I think it would be better to have a larger group or the millenniums, if that is an option.

 

It is an option to just have more Millenniums, it’s just expensive since I have to order them. Tbh it was the plan to just have the 6 millenniums but the other male died in quarantine. I’ll just keep them separated until I can either get more or donate him to petco.

 

These are all very active and nearly 5 inches when fully grown, for the males at least. In a 55 gal that includes some other fish I think it would be best stick to a half dozen group of one species.

 

You can try to call pet stores and ask them if they can order millennium rainbow fish for you. I did this all the time before covid.

 

I guess you’re right. My bio load is sitting good so I don’t wanna overload it. I tried asking the fish stores near me but they won’t do orders. Only one that will is two and a half hours away lol. I’ll just plan a trip to the nearby petco that’ll take him as a donation and worry about ordering another millennium male later on.

 

Update: I separated the Turqouise male with a divider for a week which gave the millenniums time to heal and the male to get much deeper red. In that time I also did research and started better cleanings, pulling algae and started feeding better and the turquoise has calmed a lot so I removed the divider after a week. It’s like dealing with GBRs again because the turquoise has stopped fighting the millenniums. I’m going to monitor closely but if it stays like this I’m just gonna keep him.

 

Final update the turquoise got mean again so I finally took him to petco so hopefully he’ll get a better owner. I like the stocking level better now though so I’m going to just keep it at the 5 millennium rainbows, 8 black skirt tetras, ≈ 7 otocinclus, dwarf gourami, 2 GBRs and spiny eel.