Nasty Platy!!!

[bigfish]

i have a red wag male platy and 1 female sunset platy and 1 female coral red platy, i have noticed that the female coral platy has damaged her right side fin and her skin has a whitish appearance down either side. On closer observation the male red wag side swipes her [bullying].

I'm not entirely sure whether the damage is cause by him or the the recent problems with my tank lately [ICH and falling Ph over the last few weeks]

What do i do??

 

[fishguy18]

I think that he may be picking on her because she appears to be weaker than him.....its kind of like all animals, when there are dominant animals that are stronger than others in a group....it is usually the weaker on that gets picked on.

Her sore could be seen as a weakness to the male and that could be why he is picking on her.

maybe the change in the water quality has thrown him for a loop and that is wats causing his odd behaviour?

keep us posted

 

[GSD]

I had this with my mollies....my water was awful which caused some of the other mollies to get weaker so the stronger one that wernt affected attacked the weaker ones!

 

[Def]

bigfish, it happens. I had a male bully a female double his size. If there's actual damage caused you need to separate the fish, possibly returning the aggressive one to the lfs. At the least put the aggressive one in a different tank or somewhere he can't get at the female for a while.

 

[fishguy18]

I agree with Def......get him out of there as soon as you can to prvent anymore injuries to the female


Good luck

 

[Mr Miagi]

Indeed, if you cant seperate them, u could always resort to putting her in a breeding cage on her own.

I suggest buying two more females. So the ration of males to females is 1 : 4.

This may help.

Goodluck

 

[fishguy18]

Yes i would purchase a few more females to help him spend more time away from her....the more females he has to attend to the less time he can spend with each one

This is the perfect excuse to buy more fish

I am always looking for those excuses

 

[Def]

Adding females will NOT necessarily remove this agression. Adding females reduces breeding attention, which is not aggression. If this is proper agression between the male and female, I would wager that adding more females won't solve the problem.