Platy Bully

[Luzi]

My red male platy gets along well with 3 of my 4 females and even with my dalmatian male, but he seems to constantly bully my yellow female. When i feed them an algae wafer he won't let her get close and he chases her around the tank headbutting her. Why??

 

[Twinklecaz]

Coz some Platys are little sods! I have one myself who does the headbutting thing ,the black and white one. I believe he has some kind of fish ADHD coz he never seems to sleep either.

Does she actually get any food? I've added a load more plants to my tank so Elmo (the one he picks on) has places to hide and I'm hoping the problem will settle down over time.

While we're on the subject, when fish kinda point at an angle towards the surface..that's a sypmtom of bulling isn't it? He can swim fine just I've noticed the bullied one sometimes does this.

 

[Luzi]

It's my bully who does the angle swim
She gets plenty of food (nothing keeps a platy away from food...) but she can't go near the alagae wafers if he's watching
The problem started a few months ago, before they were fine. Luckily i added another male who likes her and sometimes protects her, but the red guy's a real bully

 

[nessar]

Are you sure shes female? I had a similar problem and they would circle each other at an angle - turned out it was a young male who hadnt got his gonopodium (spelling?) yet and it was a dominance thing.

 

[Luzi]

Definately female- she's round and i've had her for 6 months with no gonopodium

 

[M.R Otter]

Yeah I noticed this behavior when I first kept platies about 2-3 years ago!!