Bully Guppy

[guppymommy]

I have a male guppy who is bullying my other guppies. I have three males and six females. The bully chases one of the other males and two of the females. I know he's not trying to impress the two females, he's trying to pick at them. What do I do with him? At the moment, I have him isolated in the tank (put him by himself in a breeder net) but I don't want to isolate him indefinately. I do have another tank (5g) but it has fry in it so I don't want to add him to that tank and have him devour the fry (they are olnly 1 week old and not large enough to avoid being eaten by him). I don't want to get rid of him, as he is a snakeskin and I want to have offspring with his coloring.

By the way, since I put him in the breeder net about an hour ago, the other fish seem much happier. They aren't fighting, or hiding out and it's so much fun to see them move around without fear!

Any suggestions?

 

[JoanneH]

I had the same prob with a male platy, he relentlessly bullied one female in my tank, I eventually took him back to my lfs even though he was a beauty, I swopped him for a female and the platy group i have are much happier now, 1 male and 4 females

 

[Annastasia]

There's nothing you really can do, if you don't want to take him back, besides getting him another tank. What size tank do you have now? Have you tried adding in more hiding places?

You don't want to keep him in the breeder for too long, since it can stress him out. Sometimes they get better once they've been in "time out" for a while..but you might just have a bully. Or you could possibly divide the tank he's in, to give him his own little space, depending on the size?

 

[aquagirl]

They've pretty much covered all you can do.. but I've got bit of a story to share. =)

I had some guppies... and damn those things were evil little things! They were like... wow. Just plain vicious.

I tried, as an experiment, to add in my betta with them one day. (Risky. Terribly risky, I know... but I was new.) All was well for a couple hours.. but then.. they turned on him.

He was... sort of old. I mean in comparison to a human he might've been in his fourties or fifties.

A nice guy he was, my Sunset. =)

So anyway I came back in two hours and they'd ripped him to shreds. He was trying to hide in the small cave I'd built for some of my fry... rather pathetic sight.

Anyway point is that guppies can be nasty.

Not saying yours are.. but obviously one is at least.

Meh.

 

[guppymommy]

I went ahead and let him out of the isolation and he is behaving better for now. I guess if he acts up, I'll just give him another time-out! If he gets really bad to where he is damaging my other guppies, I'll have to take him back I guess.

Thanks for the advice. Sorry to hear about the mean streak in your guppies aquagirl. I really hope mine doesn't get that mean, but I'll keep an eye on him and take him back if he does, no matter how pretty he is!