**update**8-week Old Guppy Joins The Adults With Some Odd-behaviour.

[Channti]

I've got an 8-week old male guppy. He was the only survivor of my first drop of fry as he was born into a community tank, and then was fished out, and grew to his current size in a plastic breeder-box in the community tank. I kept him in the breeder for that long because of the size of the mouth on my black molly (it's got one huge-mouth, hence why it's named after my brother). Anyway, I put together an all-guppy tank and released the 8-week old in there today. He is about 1/3 the size of the guppies in the tank. First thing he did was start picking at the bodies of my other fish. He's been picking at their fins and bodies since I put him in the tank 2 hours ago. At first I thought he was just hungry, so I fed everyone some flake and made sure that he ate some, but 10 minutes later he was back to picking at the bodies and fins of my other fish.

Is this a behaviour that will fade? (As this is his first interaction with other fish?) I'm not really sure what to do. Can this hurt my other guppies? Should he go back to being a solo-guppy, or do you think he'll adapt to life with other guppies time-permitting? Should I be worried about this?

Thanks!

 

[Bella]

I don't know that much about guppies or babies... new to the baby hobbie.

But i have a tank of about 80 fry they are really starting to grow range from three months to one week old .. some you can reconise.. anyway.. I have one molly who always pecks at the pleco. I don't know why but it doesn't seem to harm the pleco and the pleco will just move away if he is bothered.

 

[Channti]

**Update**

It's been a few days since Mutt Jr's introduction to the adult tank. He is no longer picking at the other fish, but he doesn't seem to interact with them much either. Hopefully as he grows and time passes, he'll interact with the other guppies. I struggle to find him on a morning because the 6 adults are always together, and he is always off by himself.

Thanks anyway. Apparently it was a behaviour that would pass.

 

[jackyb07s4]

you probably should have let him stay in the main tank. I find babies left in too long can have very stunted growth since they can't excersie enough. Most babies are ineadable within around 3 weeks.

 

[Channti]

I wouldn't have removed him from the main tank at all on a normal day, but my youngest brother spotted it and demanded I "save" it. At the time, there were some large-mouthed fish in my community who had gobbled up all of the other fry. I kept it in the breeder until I was _certain_ that he wouldn't look like food, because it would have broken my brothers heart to see it die. He was the only fry I saved from that drop, and had the breeder to himself, which, to one small guppy fry, is a lot of room. Once he started getting his colour around 4 weeks, it was only a matter of time before I put him into a tank with other fish, but I didn't want to have to fight to catch him in the community tank when I put my guppy tank together (the number of plants in there alone makes it hard to catch bigger and slow-moving fish, let alone a small, fast-moving guppy), so I left him for the time being in the breeder.

My newest drop of fry is almost big enough to be released into the adult tank (a few weeks old). I'm only saving fry now because populating my tank through my guppy offspring is much cheaper than buying guppies.