Male guppies chasing one female

[August Vukosovich]

Hello again everyone. I had a ten gallon tank that just had three females in it. It's been hard to keep that tank, plus my 36 gallon tank, plus my 5 gallon fry tank so I decided to move the three females to the 36 gallon. One of the females is my favorite since I've had her the longest.

I drip acclimated the three females to a tank that has 4 males and 8 females. So now there are 4 males and 11 females. In my 36 gallon. The males do chase the other females a little but not too much and it's been very peaceful.

The day after I put the 3 females in I woke up to take a look and see how they are doing. Every single male in the tank is chasing my favorite! ALL of them. And it is non-stop and she is stressed and breathing hard. It's been going on for so many hours that I'm getting stressed just looking at it. They have completely forgot all other females except for her. I have a pretty good ratio so why is this happening? I thought maybe it's because she is new but it can't be because there are two other new females and they are ignoring them. Is there anything I can do or hopefully, is this temporary? I would hate to have to get rid of my males but I'm thinking about it.

 

[August Vukosovich]

Also, I left out the most important part even though it's probably obvious. They are all trying to mate with her. She is now laying on the bottom of the aquarium so they can't get under her. I do have live plants for her to hide but she won't use them. Also, she is the largest. Not sure if that matters. Thanks all!

 

[Colin_T]

separate them. put the males in the smaller tank and leave the females to produce babies in the big tank.

this is why livebearers should be kept in single sex tanks, to stop the males raping the females and killing them from stress.

 

[August Vukosovich]

I think I may have to do that. I really didn't want to though. Everyone was fine before I added her. The males only spent a small majority of the day chasing females and it was divided up between the 8 females so it wasn't bad at all and everyone seemed happy. Why is it just this female they all want? Maybe i should just move her and her two sisters back out since she is the changing factor and they get along very well.

I had no idea that males could kill the females by stressing them out. I feel like I've done a real disservice to them by not doing enough research before I started this whole thing. But I don't want them to chase her to her death! You should see them on her. I had guppies when i was a kid and have never seen anything like this. It's like she makes them crazy fish!

 

[August Vukosovich]

I just did some research on scholarly articles and now know the reason why they are pursuing her like they are. Male guppies tend to favor large females, virgin females, and females in their receptive stage. She just gave birth 4 days ago so therefore receptive. The other two new females are already pregnant. They of course will mate with pregnant fenalef but given the choice they prefer ones who are not pregnant. I'm going to take an educated guess that all the other females in the tank are pregnant except her. Thank you for your advice. As she is probably pregnant now. Her status change may slow down their chasing of her within the next couple of days. I will wait two days and if it doesn't stop, I will take all the males out of the tank right away and put them in my 10 gallon which is my only tank that is cycled so I'm sure they will be happy and safe there.

 

[FishGuest5123]

You may still want to QT her for a couple of days just to rest. Two more days of chasing could actually kill her.

 

[August Vukosovich]

Will do. I'll take her out now. Thank you!