Interesting Guppy Behavior

[Amryn]

Hi everybody!

I'm new to fish keeping and I have a behavioral question about a female guppy of mine.

This little guppy seems to like staying at the lower level of the tank. I know that Guppy's are upper level fish, so this is kind of strange. She's very active and seems perfectly content to swim around by the gravel and nibble on the algae. My tank is a 25g hexagon. The only time she swims higher in the tank is to catch pieces of flake as they float down.

The tank is planted, but the plants aren't very tall yet (considering the height of a hex tank). Also, if I had to guess, I'd say she's about 2 weeks pregnant. Maybe she just likes the plant cover?

I do hope that nothing's wrong with her. Any ideas?

 

[Amryn]

I just saw this same guppy nipping at my panda cory's tail. I had noticed some damage the other day, but now I know the culprit. Would giving to cory a little cave have?

This tank is in a startup phase so currently I only have the one guppy, and two corydoras. I know the corys need more friends, I'm just waiting for the tank to fully cycle

 

[Amryn]

Oh and another question, in this size tank, roughly how many corys can I safely keep? I want my corys to have buddies, I just don't want to overstock the tank. Being a tall tank there is less gravel surface area so I'm at a loss on the amount of corys I can have. But, being a new tank, I will definitely slowly add more fish.

 

[Baccus]

Being a shoaling fish the guppy maybe just hanging around with the catfish for in its view safety in numbers, she may also be hunting for food scraps that the catfish dislodge in their hunt for food. I would never class guppies as purely surface fish, my guppies tend to wonder all over the tank and when they know they are not getting fed hunt around the bottom of the tank for morsals of food.
 
For the hex tank you will really need to work out the floor surface area so we can better advise on how many corys it can comfortably keep. This might help you for working out.
http/www.wikihow.com/Calculate-the-Area-of-a-Hexagon

 

[Amryn]

The area of the hexagon is roughly 259.81 (side length of 10 inches).

That's good to know about the guppy. She seems pretty happy, so I was thinking that she probably wasn't sick. =] later today I might be getting two more guppies, a male and a female.

 

[Aquarian58]

I have two pregnant guppies, one in a new 90 litre tank and the other in an established 20 litre tank and both have started exhibiting this "bottom-dwelling" behaviour in the last few days
 
Both are happy to chase food at the surface but then return to the lower third of the tanks and pick at the substrate looking for scraps that have settled.
 
I also have a Peppered Cory in the small tank and the Guppy shows no interest in it at all.
 
I'm not sure if this helps, but I'm wondering if this behaviour might be confirmed by other members?

 

[Amryn]

I added two more guppies on Tuesday and the original guppy now hangs out with them. =] she's totally ignoring the corys.

Would my tank be overstocked if I had:
5-6 corydoras
3-6 guppies
3 otocinclus catfish
5-10 red cherry shrimp

Those numbers are just rough estimates. I would love to have otos and shrimp, but I would be fine with only having one or the other. Any advice on my tank's stocking would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Amryn]

Any thoughts on stocking these fish?

 

[cowgirluntamed]

I would definitely add more cories. They do need to be in a group of at least 6 to be happy. I think adding shrimp would be fine as they aren't hard on the bioload but it really depends on your water parameters. Most only handle certain parameters. As for more guppies...if you have a male and females...or heck, even just females if thy are already pregnant, you will naturally have more guppies anyway. I don't think I would add more myself. As for the otos...im not sure on these. They are very sensitive fish and most suggest they need a more established tank before adding.