What To Expect From A Sorority

Hey all, so I have a 20 gallon long planted tank and more plants are on their way. I was thinking about doing a sorority with a bunch of baby females and wondered first of all, is this safe? Like, I know that they could end up being boys because sometimes babies are sexed wrongly, and you should start with 4-7 or so?

Basically, is this a bad idea? What would you expect if you did this? Chasing? Fighting? How long? Would it be better and less stressful to just get one baby for the 20 gallon long?

Any advice from people who have had experience with this is welcome.

 

I’d start with seven, as odd numbers are advices. As they are young, I wouldn’t expect too much damage to be done and they’ll likely be very peaceful as adults.

It would be more stressful for you with one in a 20 long (you’ll be looking for something quite small) but a bit more stressful for the fry. They won’t stress each other too much and if you see one being too aggressive take her out. And try again. If it’s the same issue, return her (or keep her if you wanna have her in a small container)

 

One of my first five turned out to be a boy. Thankfully it worked out. Bigger tanks allow for unseen things like this. If it happened in a 20 he would have to be removed since mine claimed about 10-15 gallons of the tank for himself. Other than that very many people have successful sororities in a 20 long. Good luck. Currently I have 13 girls. Gave 7 away not due to any issues just my daughters freinds wanting it.

 

So, I’m starting with 5 babies, hopefully that’s okay. 7 seemed like a lot for 20g, that would be just 2.5g for each fish. So far they are doing good, there is one main aggressive fish that is a little larger than the others and pinkish. There was one fin slapping that I’ve seen, but since then it’s just random chasing around the tank sometimes, mainly by the main pinkish fish. She tolerates another slightly smaller pink fish, and really dislikes the other blue/white ones. Nobody seems hurt, just chased a lot. The pink ones have stress stripes even though they are dominant, which seems weird.. The main female is also kind of hoarding the food from the lower 3. She looks a tiny bit bloated after today’s feeding. She is the only one who has flared gills yet too. I ordered more plants for more hiding and line of sight blocking which should be here soon. Other than that their colors have come out a lot and they seem to be healthier than in the store. I asked the store how they know if the babies are male/female and they said that the fish provider tells them what they are, so they don’t actually know how they know if they are males or females, but I think I have seen egg spots (unsure about that). Anyway, that’s how it’s going so far.

 

So, here is my tank with some more plants that just came. 3 girls came out to look at the new plants, I tried to put them in places that seemed empty and hard to hide at, but there is still some chasing going on.


Here is the main pink girl going after a blue girl.



Dominant pink girls together swimming.



Blue checking out a moss log.