Very Aggressive Male Guppy- Please Help, He's Going To Kill The Ot

[trianglekitty]

I had two male guppies. One of them died, and I moved the other to a larger tank with some cories. He kept trying to school with them and was stressing them out by chasing them all day. Yesterday I added two more males to the tank. It did divert the guppy's attention, but now he's relentlessly harrassing the two newcomers, especially the larger of the pair. He's taken chunks from his fin and keeps 'attacking' him with his gonopodium. I've very afraid he's going to stress him to death.

I was going to add another guppy to bring it up to a proper number, but I'm not sure if that would help or hurt the situation. The tank is 20 gallons, so there's plenty of room. I've had this guy a while and don't want to take him to the store, but I've never seen a guppy act so aggressive.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Male guppys can be a bit aggressive towards one another, but generally speaking, the more you keep together the better the success of the group as a whole (as any aggression becomes more evenly spread amongst them, unlike in a trio or duo where a dominant one will constantly pick on the weakest). So adding more male guppys can alleviate aggression problems like this (i generally advise groups of at least 5-7+) .
If you just swap the current dominant male you risk ending up getting another dominant male- plus regardless of the nature of the male you will always end up with one male at the top of the pecking order and one at the bottom. If you add more males i would advise adding at least another 3 (all at once rather than adding one at a time).
Male guppys will mate with other males as a form of dominance (this happens even in tanks with plenty of females, its just the way they structure their societies when there's one than one male involved regardless of quantities of females).

 

[trianglekitty]

Male guppys can be a bit aggressive towards one another, but generally speaking, the more you keep together the better the success of the group as a whole (as any aggression becomes more evenly spread amongst them, unlike in a trio or duo where a dominant one will constantly pick on the weakest). So adding more male guppys can alleviate aggression problems like this (i generally advise groups of at least 5-7+) .
If you just swap the current dominant male you risk ending up getting another dominant male- plus regardless of the nature of the male you will always end up with one male at the top of the pecking order and one at the bottom. If you add more males i would advise adding at least another 3 (all at once rather than adding one at a time).
Male guppys will mate with other males as a form of dominance (this happens even in tanks with plenty of females, its just the way they structure their societies when there's one than one male involved regardless of quantities of females).

Thanks so much, I've got a group of five now and it's made a big difference- they still nip at each other, but it isn't all being directed toward one in particular. Great advice! I'll probably get three more soon.

Thanks again!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Cool really glad to hear things have worked out very well with the guppys, glad i could be of help !