Should I add more guppies?

[kimsch1005]

I have a 10 gallon, fully cycled, and heavily planted tank.
It currently has one male betta, three males guppies, three blue cobalt gobies, and one dwarf blue crayfish. It is definitely a bit overstocked, but as far as compatibility, I started by adding snails and shrimp to see how my betta would react to them and he was curious but not aggressive. Added the gobies and the crayfish and they get along perfect, as far as the guppies goes, he does chase them a bit during feeding but other than that they all get a long extremely well. I do have options to move them if anything does happen to go south.

I'm worried about one of my male guppies. They seemed to have worked out their hierarchy, but I've noticed the biggest does bother the beta(as in the guppy not the betta!) a lot more than I would hope. He chases him and lot and nips at him: today I noticed he was missing a chunk from his tail. I understand guppies, especially males will always form a social heirarchy, but is there anything I could do reduce the stress on the beta male? I have IAL in the tank and they are helping his tail to heal already, but I really am hoping to reduce how much he gets picked on. Would adding a couple more guppies to the mix help make it so he is not targeted as much?

Extra note: there is plenty of plants and rocks for cover and to split up field of vision, but even though I expect the beta guppy to kind of hide when he is being picked on, but he doesn't seem to do so. All three of them choose to stay pretty close most of the time.

 

[Ghelfaire]

I would move them instead of adding more. It may also be the crayfish as the aggressor. Do you know the adult size it will get?

 

[kimsch1005]

I would move them instead of adding more. It may also be the crayfish as the aggressor. Do you know the adult size it will get?

I don't believe its the dwarf crayfish, spends most of its time hiding in rock crevices, and in plants, and the fish don't bother him. He'll get to about 1.6 inches.

 

[Ghelfaire]

I don't believe its the dwarf crayfish, spends most of its time hiding in rock crevices, and in plants, and the fish don't bother him. He'll get to about 1.6 inches.

Long fancy tails are tempting and crayfish are very active at night when fish are resting.

 

[UnknownUser]

If you want to keep on top of maintenance, you can get away with an overstocked tank. Add two more male guppies and see if that helps. But be careful, keep an eye on ammonia and nitrates and how dirty the tank gets. Maybe add extra filtration. And an extra airstone. It would be a better idea to move the guppies into their own 10 gal and have 7-8 male guppies alone though. Your choice.

 

[kimsch1005]

Long fancy tails are tempting and crayfish are very active at night when fish are resting.

Maybe I should just try moving the crayfish to my shrimp tank?

 

[ElysiumPlants]

I don't believe its the dwarf crayfish, spends most of its time hiding in rock crevices, and in plants, and the fish don't bother him. He'll get to about 1.6 inches.

Here’s the thing about keeping tanks: unless you want to install nannycams so you can review footage, it mostly comes down to a back and forth between guesswork and research. Eventually, experiential learning gets us to the point where our educated guesses start to hit the nail on the head.

Pretty sure I know why Ghelfaire asked what he did, and he’s almost certainly right. Your crayfish may hide in the rocks when the lights are on, but he’s almost certainly the culprit taking chunks out of tails when he’s active. If you’re observing conflict between your fish, they’re going to be stressed and beaten up during the day, just in time for the crayfish (they’re largely nocturnal) to come out of his hiding spot for some fish sticks.

If it were me, I’d set up a 20G or larger for my fish and let the crayfish have the 10G to himself. I definitely wouldn’t add anything else to that tank.

 

[Pfrozen]

Aren't dwarf crayfish roughly the same size as RCS and extremely peaceful? Max size is 1.6" vs 1.5" for RCS? Afaik they can be kept with almost anything. I could be missing something tho

 

[kimsch1005]

If you want to keep on top of maintenance, you can get away with an overstocked tank. Add two more male guppies and see if that helps. But be careful, keep an eye on ammonia and nitrates and how dirty the tank gets. Maybe add extra filtration. And an extra airstone. It would be a better idea to move the guppies into their own 10 gal and have 7-8 male guppies alone though. Your choice.

I currently have the aquaclear 30 on it, as well as an aqueon internal filter, both with a lot of bio media. I'm also doing 25% water changes 2x a week in order to keep the water quality pristine because I've read the gobies are really sensitive to water quality. Though I haven't had any spike of anything, I would hope this would be enough if I wanted to add a couple more guppies.

If i had the money or time or space I would get a 20 gallon. My plan is to move the crayfish to a different tank.

 

[Pfrozen]

So every website says dwarf crayfish are completely peaceful. Are they just wrong? Genuinely curious, would like to know cus I considered them

Dwarf Crayfish Care: Tank Mates, Food, Size & More.

 

[kimsch1005]

Aren't dwarf crayfish roughly the same size as RCS and extremely peaceful? Max size is 1.6" vs 1.5" for RCS? Afaik they can be kept with almost anything. I could be missing something tho

My thoughts exactly. Since I have a male betta in my tank I was extra careful about what I could get away with, and I wouldnt want to put something in the tank that would harass him and make him aggressive. I'm actually curious and tempted to buy a like a night cam to see if the culprit it actually the crayfish.

Here’s the thing about keeping tanks: unless you want to install nannycams so you can review footage, it mostly comes down to a back and forth between guesswork and research. Eventually, experiential learning gets us to the point where our educated guesses start to hit the nail on the head.

Pretty sure I know why Ghelfaire asked what he did, and he’s almost certainly right. Your crayfish may hide in the rocks when the lights are on, but he’s almost certainly the culprit taking chunks out of tails when he’s active. If you’re observing conflict between your fish, they’re going to be stressed and beaten up during the day, just in time for the crayfish (they’re largely nocturnal) to come out of his hiding spot for some fish sticks.

If it were me, I’d set up a 20G or larger for my fish and let the crayfish have the 10G to himself. I definitely wouldn’t add anything else to that tank.

My hypothesis is that the crayfish is not the problem. My reasoning is that considering the size of the ~1.2 inch crayfish's pinchers and the chunk of tail missing from the guppy, the two don't add up, unless of course the crayfish happened to attack the same part of the tail various times. Despite that, I'm not going to rule out the possibility and you've spiked my interest in setting up a cam in order to see if the crayfish is in fact the culprit. Would be a cool observational study

 

[UnknownUser]

My thoughts is that you’ll need to do some testing. If you can move the dwarf crayfish, go ahead, see if the chunks of tail stop happening. I don’t know much about crayfish so I can’t say if they’re peaceful or not. But what I do know is that 3 guppy males are likely to harass the beta to death, as you have explained (and I assume, seen happening) and therefore I would 100% add more male guppies. Of course, it’s not ideal to add fish to this already stocked tank, so upgrading to a 20 gal and adding more guppies is the ideal option. But that doesn’t mean that no one here has ever overstocked a tank. It’s just more work and effort. Guppies are social, they won’t mind being crowded. The other fish might be annoyed bu the guppies being in their domains, though. It’s a trial and error here. Up to you which path to take first. Add more guppies, remove the crayfish, upgrade the tank. Whatever you can afford/maintain/think is best for the fish.

 

[Ghelfaire]

Crayfish are opportunistic eaters. They'll eat anything they can reach. My crayfish is peaceful but if one of my tetras gets sick you better believe it would end up as a snack.
Maybe your betta is only nippy at night or when you aren't looking who knows

 

[kimsch1005]

Crayfish are opportunistic eaters. They'll eat anything they can reach. My crayfish is peaceful but if one of my tetras gets sick you better believe it would end up as a snack.
Maybe your betta is only nippy at night or when you aren't looking who knows

My betta, Dragon was my biggest concern regarding compatibility. Because of that, I did observe if he was acting different towards the guppies at night over various nights. Luckily the guppies do seem to understand he is in charge, because they don't get all up in his business, and he is a way slower swimmer than they are, so I'm assuming it would be very hard for him to actually catch any of them to do damage. However, once again you're right, unless I'm able to catch the tail-nipper red handed, all i can do is make educated guesses.

 

[kimsch1005]

Crayfish are opportunistic eaters. They'll eat anything they can reach. My crayfish is peaceful but if one of my tetras gets sick you better believe it would end up as a snack.
Maybe your betta is only nippy at night or when you aren't looking who knows

Also I'm curious, what kind of crayfish do you have?

 

[Ghelfaire]

Also I'm curious, what kind of crayfish do you have?

I have a 55g with a papershell crayfish, she was sold to me as a different species and there's really no info on Google (that I can find) on keeping them as pets.
So far she's fish safe, my betta can get right up in her face and not get pinched and plant safe, she just eats the dead stuff and algae off of them. My Amazon swords are actually doing a lot better with her in the tank because of how she's been pruning them. She also ate all the pest snails in the tank.
She's about 3" now but I don't think she'll get much bigger.

 

[kimsch1005]

I have a 55g with a papershell crayfish, she was sold to me as a different species and there's really no info on Google (that I can find) on keeping them as pets.
So far she's fish safe, my betta can get right up in her face and not get pinched and plant safe, she just eats the dead stuff and algae off of them. My Amazon swords are actually doing a lot better with her in the tank because of how she's been pruning them. She also ate all the pest snails in the tank.
She's about 3" now but I don't think she'll get much bigger.

Wow, thats cool. Sounds like she's really helping you out.