Problem With Platy And Guppies

[amanda8beechwood]

We've had our new tank around 2 months, it is fully cycled, we've got 5 glowtorch neons, 3 platys, one orange, one white and one blue. We've just bought 3 guppies and one siamese fighting fish, he's going back to the pet shop in a couple of days as we've had to separate him as he's already tried to fight with two platys and we're worried about our guppies. We had read that these were community fish in our fish book but after reading the information on this forum we've watched him closely and he seems really aggressive when the fish go near him. Anyway, the problem we have is two of the guppies just won't leave the orange platy alone, they really are terrorising her, they keep chasing and nipping her for no reason. Could this be cos she's orange and they are or do you think it will settle down and its just because they are new in the tank x

 

[lilfishie]

if there male then there trying to mate with her, but don't worry it will never result in fry as they are a complete different genus, are all the guppies males? and how big is the tank? glad to hear your removing the fighter fish, but you could always get a 2 gallon for him to live in by himself, he'll be very happy in there

 

[amanda8beechwood]

Thanks so much for the advice chick. We've had two poorly fish so it makes you a little paranoid that your fish are gonna get pecked to death doesn't it. Yes they are three males we've introduced to the tank. How come they don't bother the glue female lol. The tank is 70lt xx

 

[lilfishie]

male guppies will try mate with anythink even ornaments, they should leave ehr alone after a while, i have found my males get bored easy, if not then just add a few extra hiding places for her, to give her a better chance of escaping

 

[amanda8beechwood]

lol that's hilarious its a good job we got males isn't it or we'd be in guppie heaven lol x

 

[The_Dude]

Guppies are cute though.

 

[lilfishie]

then you don't want to know that i had over 100 at one point

 

[amanda8beechwood]

lol yes they are cute. Furious this morning and going back to the LFS. The siamese is dead and so is one of the guppies. We did notice it was gasping at the top of the tank as soon as we put it in though. The LFS have asked for us to take them back so they can tell us what was up with them. My hubby is well upset as we'd decided to get a separate tank for the betta x

 

[lilfishie]

sorry for your losses, was there anyother symptoms? what are your water stats? ammonia? nitrite? nitrate?

 

[Jozlyn]

I have male guppies and I've found that a group of 5+ boys seems to stop them harrassing anyone else, they tend to spend all their time together playing in the filter current.

Sorry for your loss, Betta's should always be kept by themselves.

As littlefishie states, please post your water stat's also, do you have an airstone in the tank? And what size is it?

 

[amanda8beechwood]

All the water stats were fine. We have an undergravel filter with an airstone in it where bubbles come out the top. We took the guppy and the betta back to the LFS and they said the betta died of stress but they don't know about the guppy. We got another guppy and five little neon tetras and two albino corys. They told us to buy algae tablets for the corys and blood worms as a treat for the other fish. They told us to split an algae tablet in half for the two corys and to give the fish a sachet of the bloody worms instead of their food. We've just got back from seeing my nan in hospital and we can't believe it, all the fish look pregnant, we have obviously overfed them, what did we do wrong, was one sachet of the blood worms too much, bloody LFS. Will the fish be ok, one of the platies look set to burst

 

[Jozlyn]

LoL she's probably pregnant and about to give you a tank full of fry!

Another good sign that your about to get fry is other fish hanging around her nether region waiting for a snack!

Overfeeding results in lots of pooing, which requires extra gravel vac's and causes very high nitrates, which require extra water changes to reduce.

 

[lilfishie]

probably the blood worm, i have only used it once and had a very bad experience with it. i did exactly the same as you in my fry tank which contained a betta, the betta was fine, the platy,molly,swordtail and guppy fry all swelled up then died, hope you don't have the same result

 

[amanda8beechwood]

Got up this morning to a neon tetra in the filter with a very bloated belly RIP bless it, all the other fish looked back to normal, no swollen bellies anymore thank god. But one of the neon tetras has whitespot. I've tested the water and the ammonia is a little on the high side so I've done a 25% water change and then gonna treat with whitespot when they've calmed down a bit from the water change, bless them. So would you not recommend feeding the blood worm at all or say half a sachet? If just half a sachet, is the other half ok to keep for a bit or does it go off? x

 

[lilfishie]

well i use frozen now, you get ehm in cubes, i thaw them out in some tank water in a cup, then do my rounds, start off by giving my bettas a few each, then the prengnant gup and fry then whats left goes into the community, and what they don't eat within 5 minutes i remove and dispose of, glad the other fish are doing better than my guys did