Fighting/bullying

[Liquidshokk]

Hi all

I think all of my earlier problems with our tank have gone away and im happy with how the tank is apart from a couple of niggly little things...

My two male mollies still annoy each other every day (cant think of a better word for it) I havent seen them fighting properly for a while now though...

more importantly my original male dennisonii barb (one of two, both males i believe) is behaving strangely. The newer one, which is smaller keeps chasing the original in what appears to be a threatening way just like the mollies do. and as a result he has started acting strange, ie staying still in a position that can only be described as hanging upside down pointing at the floor! quite often he does this against the filter housing in the corner... I havent seen him eat anything in weeks, whereas he used to eat like there was no tomorrow when food was around! a few weeks back he jumped out of the tank when i was cleaning and landed on the carpet! Could he just still be traumatised from that??

I know I'll get comments saying that I'm meant to have 2:1 in females in both cases but I'm a bit hesitant about adding that many females in the size tank i have and the number of fish i have...

does anyone have a better explanation for the strange/annoying behaviour and would i get away with putting an influx of females in the tank in both cases??

Thanks in advance

 

[scorphonic]

Hi all

I think all of my earlier problems with our tank have gone away and im happy with how the tank is apart from a couple of niggly little things...

My two male mollies still annoy each other every day (cant think of a better word for it) I havent seen them fighting properly for a while now though...

more importantly my original male dennisonii barb (one of two, both males i believe) is behaving strangely. The newer one, which is smaller keeps chasing the original in what appears to be a threatening way just like the mollies do. and as a result he has started acting strange, ie staying still in a position that can only be described as hanging upside down pointing at the floor! quite often he does this against the filter housing in the corner... I havent seen him eat anything in weeks, whereas he used to eat like there was no tomorrow when food was around! a few weeks back he jumped out of the tank when i was cleaning and landed on the carpet! Could he just still be traumatised from that??

I know I'll get comments saying that I'm meant to have 2:1 in females in both cases but I'm a bit hesitant about adding that many females in the size tank i have and the number of fish i have...

does anyone have a better explanation for the strange/annoying behaviour and would i get away with putting an influx of females in the tank in both cases??

Thanks in advance

Its quite a simple one really, male mollys will threaten each other. My males were doing it up until last night when I got annoyed and removed the bully from the tank and put him in another tank. If space is an issue and the mollys are constantly at each other you can always remove a male and sell him to a pet store. If you can add more females thing will die down but wont vanish completely...one molly will always try to cover all females!!

How many barbs do you have? (sorry but I didn't look at your sig before writing this!!). Barbs in large numbers wont always fight with the same fish in the group and the agression will be spread out. If you have a few then maybe what you are seeing will eventually resolve itself when dominance has been fully expressed!! Give it time and you should see an improvement but if it continues to a point where your barb remains in a vertical position (stressed) then remove the bully or the stressed barb.

EDIT: 2 barbs...this is why you are seeing this I'm sure. As a matter of interest, do the barbs bother your guppies at all?