Lunette's Question

[lunette]

great article I really learned a lot ... in your article you mentioned a very peaceful community tank can turn violent over the night. thats what happened to my tank. It all started my neon sword tail male. I couldnot find him in the tank. so I started feeding them he did not come. he was hiding at the castle. (which I read they do that when they are stressed)... my fish were very peaceful but now they are not only hostile to each other but also pinching especially my big black molly. yesterday my gourami and dalmatians started pinching too. and I think we lost our ballon molly! I feed them enough with regular fish food and shrimp. we have live plants, castle and a big rock etc. I think enough hiding places. tank is clean temperature is fine... I cant understand what happened. do you have any other suggestions? ( I have 2 orange 2 mixed black mollies, 1 mickey, 2 dalmatian, 1 gourami, 1 plecostomus, 2 neon sword tails,1 big black molly). we had all the fish in pairs but some died... our first 4 fish is very healthy and keep growing. we have 6 suprise fries we put them in a breeding net feeding them with a special liquid food... thats all i can say. thanks a lot

 

[Annastasia]

Hi, I split this from the FAQs since you'll get more views here.

You have a lot of potentially aggressive fish in that tank. How many gallons is it? Also, I think one of your biggest problems, is that you were keeping pairs of Livebearers. They should be kept 2-3 females per male, for two reasons. 1. The males are constantly trying to mate, and can stress the female out very much, if all their attention is on her. With 2-3 per male, he spends time with each, and therefore the others get a break. 2. Since male Livebearerse are mating machines, they were frustrated with only having one female each. They would then get aggressive with the other males in the tank, for females. Hence why your tank turned into a warzone.

Depending on the size of your tank, I'd get more females so you have the right ratio, or, if you have a smaller tank, take some fish back and get a few fish in the right ratio. The ratio is an important thing with Livebearers.

I also noticed you have a Pleco...this is most likely a common Pleco, in which case it can get to 12-18", depending on the type. What kind of Gourami do you have?

Mollies also prefer to be in slightly brackish water, so that might be something to consider if you want to keep the Mollies. You can read more about salt in the pinned topic here. However, the Pleco will not appreciate the salt. So that's a choice you'll have to make there.

Good luck! I'm sorry you had bad luck with your tank. but with a few simple changes, you should be able to straighten it out.

 

[lunette]

Hi Annastasia, Thanks a lot for moving my question and answering... Actually I blame myself I should have read more instead of taking petshop advice! I thought they knew these things apparently not.. I am an animal lover I got carried a way.. They told us that these are peaceful community fish we can go in pairs and sometimes they even mate with other types... they even gave us some male guppies and one lost its tail so I immeaditely returned the other one.
Anyway I got a 20 gallon tank.. I added some new plants and another bigger structre today so I hope females can hide more. I will try to take at least one back but it is going to be hard because I love them all... but I dont want to loose more fish due to stress etc. I hope at least some of my fries turn out to be females by the way I think my neon is pregnant too. and in a 20 gallon tank I wont be able to maintain these fish what do you think?
My gourami is powder blue..my plecostomus is already 3.5"
I already added salt but my water is not very brakish yet! and I have some ammonia although we have changed 50% of tank water last week and tank is clean so I think I will have to wait to add females if I have to ???

Thank you so much .... I will keep reading