Female Fancy Guppies Fighting?

[shawnus]

Here's my situation:
-a 29 gal regular tank
-a 10 gal QT/breeding tank
-the 29 gal has a higher salinity because i recently treated the tank for ich.
-the 29 gal has one female guppy (along with a bunch of other fish). her partner died, so shes all alone.
-the 10 gal has a pair of guppies

I thought it would be a good idea to move the lone female into the 10 gal, to give my male a small harem (hehe) and to increase my chances or reproduction.

when i made the transfer, things went terribly wrong! the lone female looked extremely stressed, and the female that was already there started attacking her! she was out for blood!

i think the stress might have been the severe change in salinity, but whats up with the fighting? i thought guppies were peaceful?

thanks in advance.
shawnus

 

[shawnus]

anyone? Please help!

 

[Allivymar]

I'm not familiar with guppies specifically, but it does sound like someone didn't want someone else horning in on her man...

Its possible the dominant female in that tank saw the new one as a threat and weaker then her, and acted accordingly. Hopefully some of our guppy breeders will have some further insight when they pop onto the site.

 

[Blatchy]

Guppies generally are peaceful fish and I find it odd that the two didn't get along. Generally females shouldn't fight as most would recommend having a two or three to one female to male ratio.

I would put it down to stress. Fish tend to attack those which are weaker. You could try putting the one that is stressed in a breeding net to prevent swapping her from tank to tank again and this may also give the other female a chance to get use to the idea of the other being in her tank.

 

[shawnus]

well i bumped up the salinity in the 10 gal tank and tried to transfer again. this time the female did not look stressed. but she and the female that was already in the 10 gal did start fighting hardcore! they locked lips like my kissing gouramis. they whacked each other with thier tails. they bit each other's bodies. they fought and fought and fought. i figured maybe they would stop after a while, but they fought for a good 20 minutes before i broke down and un-transfered one of the females.

its wierd, there wasnt too much stress so they were more or less evenly matched, and they fought like mad. seriously it reminded me of Gandolf fighting the earth demon from the 2nd LOTR movie!

any suggestions?

 

[grimlock3000]

"any suggestions?"

one thing you can try is adding new fish to the tank when all the lights are off and leaving them for the night. the fish wake up slowly to each other and might just go along like everything is ok. some fish just do not get along though

 

[shawnus]

thanks grimlock, i did the transfer right before i went to bed and now they are not fighting anymore. good advice, thanks.


shawnus