Which Fish Are The Bullies In My Tank.......

[spongy]

I have a tropical community tank but some of my fish are showing signs of injuries and I don't know who is causing them

I have a 180l tank and my stocking is as follows......

2 x female paradise fish (used to have a male but he died)
6 x platy
2 x marble mollies
5 x harlequin
6 x black phantom tetra
7 x cardinal tetra
1 x swordtail
1 x cory (used to be 3 but 2 have died)

Which one/s are the bullies? I keep a careful watch over them and apart from once have I seen proper bullying going on.

I used to have a male paradise fish but he showed an injury which grew so I had to isolate him but he never recovered and he died. When he was injured I saw one of my Platys have a go at him, but he was 4x the size of it and king of the tank at the time.

I had a Cory whose tail disappeared virtually over night and today I have a swordtail that is missing an eye

Do fish if they sense a sign of illness or something wrong with another fish do they gang up and bully it to death?

All my fish appear healthy but once I notice a sign of something being up they go downhill very quickly.

Since my male paradise fish died the 2 females have been quarrelling amongst themselves ever since, they were bought together and are the same size, they each live in a different side of my tank but meet in the middle regularly for a ruck and then both do a runner to their own side, if I were to get another male back in would it re establish the status quo back, I've never seen the paradise fish go for another species though until tonight actually when one had a "peck" at my swordtail with the one eye, did this fish cause the injury or just having a go as she can see he is injured already?

The only other quarrel was a platy pecking at my male paradise fish after his injury appeared, I can't believe the platy caused the injury on the paradise fish in the first place though.....

Some advice would be great, as I don't know what to do.....

 

[zain611]

i would say the paradise fish

 

[sadguppy]

Paradise fish.

 

[spongy]

Dag nammit, they're my favourites

Would re introducing a male give them something else to concentrate on or am I best off trying to rehome them?

Paradise fish are part of the gourami family, are all gourami nippy and bullies?

 

[MBOU]

No, Paradise fish are just particularly nasty and known eye biters.

 

[spongy]

Are they really? That's a complete pain in the @£"!

They've been in there 6 months and never been aggressive before, they have never had a go that I've seen at any of my other fish. And I can't see the females having a go and biting the male.

Wish I'd known this before buying them, I would have stuck with my first idea of dwarf gourami.

 

[MBOU]

Female anabantoides can be really narky! Gouramis too!

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

More than likely the Paradise Fish, but it is worth noting that most of your tank stocking is based on species that can be a bit fiesty (exceptins being the Harlequins; Cory; Cardinals) and so you could have more than one rogue in that community causing havok.

 

[Gilli]

I had a platy in my community tank that was such a nasty bully to everyone I had to remove him and put him in with my shrimp tank alone!!