Aggressive and territorial guppy?

[FishyJoe]

About a month back, after cycling our 5g tank, we added two male guppies. Both seemed to take on the new environment well. However, after a few days one of the guppies got caught in the filter and died. Tragic. After a couple of weeks, we went out and bought a new guppy. That was yesterday. The guppy that was in the tank seems to be aggressive to the new guppy. I'm thinking he had become territorial since he was sole king and master of that tank for a couple of weeks. I figured by morning, he'd get tired of it. But no. He's still trailing the new (and bigger) guppy around, and it seems that the new guppy is getting stressed and doesn't like it. At least that's what I'm thinking.

What sort of solutions, apart from getting a larger tank do I have? I plan to get a 20g sometime later this year, but in the meantime, would a third guppy help?

 

[Colin_T]

Guppies live in groups of males or females and have a definite pecking order with dominant fish bullying smaller weaker fish to stop them competing for the top spot.

If the bully doesn't stop picking on the new fish in a couple of days, remove the new fish so it doesn't get killed and leave the single male alone.

 

[GaryE]

Picking on or attempting to mate with? Guppy males kept alone become very indiscriminate in their mate choice. Even rocks become sexy to them.

 

[FishyJoe]

Picking on or attempting to mate with? Guppy males kept alone become very indiscriminate in their mate choice. Even rocks become sexy to them.

I feel like you are not joking? That's kind of funny if that's actually true.

 

[FishyJoe]

Guppies live in groups of males or females and have a definite pecking order with dominant fish bullying smaller weaker fish to stop them competing for the top spot.

If the bully doesn't stop picking on the new fish in a couple of days, remove the new fish so it doesn't get killed and leave the single male alone.

It's funny, because the much smaller guppy was picking on the bigger one. Since we have two tanks, I did a fish-swap. I moved the aggressive guppy to my tank with the much bigger molly, and the cory from my tank to my son's. So now my tank has the aggressive guppy and the molly. His tank has the cory and the nice guppy. It seemed to work out. The mean guppy and the molly seem to get along, and I figured if the mean guppy was still gonna be a jerk, at least he'd have to content with a much bigger fish! Lol.

 

[Colin_T]

Picking on or attempting to mate with? Guppy males kept alone become very indiscriminate in their mate choice. Even rocks become sexy to them.

Male guppies, swordtails, platies and mollies don't have to be kept alone to try to have sex with anything. If it looks like a fish they will try to breed with it, doesn't matter if it's a fish, rock or plant.

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I feel like you are not joking? That's kind of funny if that's actually true.

It's true. They are worse than male dogs with too much testosterone that try to hump your leg.