Guppies attacking Bronze Cory

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blenc

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Hello there, I would be grateful for a little advise? I am new to keeping tropical fish and have a very small 5g tank. In the tank I have 4 guppies (2 king cobra and 2 red tailed tux) and a bronze cory, or should I say had the cory. The guppies attacked the cory from the minute I introduced the fella, it did get better but less than a week later the cory died with hardly a tail left due to the attacks. Can anyone tell me why this may have happened? Also, how many fish would you recommend for a 5g tank, and will I be OK introducing a plec with the Guppies?

Please drop me an email?

Thanks in advance

Blenc.
 
Sorry about your cory, but your tank would have been a little over-stocked with him and corys are schooling fish (i.e. should be kept in groups). Guppies can be aggressive and yours evidently are.

A common plec could grow to 2.5 feet! So that species would be no good. A dwarf plec of some kind could grow to only 3-4 inches, so that's a possibility. However, a 5 gal tank is really too small for anything more than what you've got already (a few guppies), or a betta, or a dwarf gourami. If you can upgrade to a 10 gallon tank it takes up very little more space and gives you a lot more options.

As you are new to fishkeeping you need to know about cycling a tank (i.e. developing the beneficial bacteria to break down the ammonia in fish waste). Please follow the link in my sig about "Avoiding New Tank Syndrome" for an explanation. My suspicion is that your cory was suffering from the results of New Tank Syndrome - cories are very susceptible to ammonia and nitrite, and the guppies attacked him because he was dying. This happens quite a lot in nature.
 
Yes, definately read about Cycling your tank! I am new to this but I learned a lot from reading about cycling. I think a five gallon tank is way too small if you plan on having a bunch of fish. Even a ten gallon tank is small if you want to have shoals of fish swimming around for your viewing delight. I would recommend starting with a 20 gallon. You can put a bunch of small fish (guppies, platies or something else that is around that size) and they are relatively easy to find, decorate and maintain.
 

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