Agreesive Guppies

[hutchyweb]

Hi I have a RIO 125 tank that’s about 4 weeks into its maturity and I have been adding fish gradually. I added 4 Corydora's 6 Dragon tailed guppies and 6 Black Neon’s 2 weeks ago, the guppies have been fighting non-stop! Yesterday I added 1 silver shark and 4 (2f 2m) swordtails. The guppies have now turned on the male swordtails and are hounding the female swordtails. I am going to put the guppies in 'jail' tonight in a floating fish hatchery and plan to add them back one by one. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks

 

[Ny82]

I find male guppies tend to be a bit dominant towards each other because they want to be the alpha male. As for hounding the swordtail females this is probably because you don't have female guppies and they are fighting for the right to mate with the female swordtails. I find swordtail males to be a bit aggressive too.
I only have 1 male guppy in my tank, he has no competition, 3 females to himself and he still tries to mate with the harlequins. 

 

[the_lock_man]

First suggestion is to take the silver shark back, it gets to at least 12", and needs to be in a group of 6+.
 
More relevantly, guppies are annyoing little things like that. They are hounding the female swordtails because they think they can, er, shall we say, satisfy their needs. They will constantly bicker, although I'm quite surprised they are tackling the male swordtails, usually a group of 6 will bicker amongst themselves, and leave the other species alone.
 
There isn't anything you can do to stop it, it's just what they do.

 

[basboi85]

Try doing a big water Change and if possible take out your decor ( rocks/hiding places fake plants if possible ) then refil and replace the decor as it might help with territories issues, worked in my tank a few times but the bickering might carry on

 

[hutchyweb]

I'll be doing a water change tonight, my fist and i was going to move some things around but as all my plants are rooted i dont want to disturb them too much. Some of the taller plants can i just snip them down?

 

[the_lock_man]

What sort of plants?