What should I do? My dal. molly is bullying my blue gourami.

[germanyt]

If you've seen my thread about my goldfish eating my hairgrass then you're aware that I have a molly and gourami in the new planted tank. I also started with 3 dwarf frogs and am now down to one that I moved just a few minutes ago to my 55 gallon goldie tank. Even with the water being like 10 degrees colder it seems much happier there. I just hope he doesn't get stuck to the filter intake like the rest of them. My dalmation molly has overtaken the tank. It keeps the blue gourami at bay and hiding all day and night. When the gourami does come out for food it gets harassed until it darts away and hides. I'm debating whether or not to bring on back to the store but I don't know which one I should. Keep the molly and ditch the gourami or vice versa? How many can I fit of each in my 10 gallon?

 

[Fresh N Salt guy]

You live in Cali? You can bring him over and watch him get bullied by my 2 puffer fish!!! Lol. I'd lose the mollie and keep gourami. Or take him back and get a new mollie. I think you just picked the alpha ***khead of the bunch. You can find a mollie for the tank. Never had an issue like that with a mollie.

 

[Fresh N Salt guy]

Try and get the smallest one you can so they can put it in check before its big and learn the rules of the tank

 

[NYgiantsRP]

Good luck with the frog, I couldn't ever keep them alive. But it's been over a year since I tried, and I think I'm going to pick a few up the next time I go to my local fish store.

Sometimes Molly/platy/swordtails can be real big jerks. But I wouldn't recommend a Molly in a 10g with a gourami. Your problem might just be the tank is too small and there is no "territory" for the gourami. Is it a dwarf blue? If it is a normal blue, you shouldn't have it in a 10g. If it is a dwarf, I would recommend 6 Pygmy cories, and 6 galaxy rasboras.

 

[piao liang yu]

i had some guppies that were bullying my other fish. what i did from advice i had read somewhere. take the bullies out, (only the bully) make some changes to the decor of the tank and then reintrocuce the bully fish to the tank. if this does not solve the problem then rehome the bully. i would not consider taking a peaceful fish back over the bully. what if he bullies others as well after you have returned your peaceful gourami?

also, you mentioned your adf's were being killed by the filter intake. you should get a fluval edge pre-filter sponge and slip over the intake. it is like $2.50 at petsmart and $2.99 at petco. it is for a fluval edge, but it works on my ac110 and ac70 HOB's and also works on a friend of mine's canister filter intake. just work it on. u need to turn filter off once a week, remove the pre-filter sponge and clean it, but it works great.

 

[germanyt]

i had some guppies that were bullying my other fish. what i did from advice i had read somewhere. take the bullies out, (only the bully) make some changes to the decor of the tank and then reintrocuce the bully fish to the tank. if this does not solve the problem then rehome the bully. i would not consider taking a peaceful fish back over the bully. what if he bullies others as well after you have returned your peaceful gourami?

also, you mentioned your adf's were being killed by the filter intake. you should get a fluval edge pre-filter sponge and slip over the intake. it is like $2.50 at petsmart and $2.99 at petco. it is for a fluval edge, but it works on my ac110 and ac70 HOB's and also works on a friend of mine's canister filter intake. just work it on. u need to turn filter off once a week, remove the pre-filter sponge and clean it, but it works great.

I had considered using some panty hose to keep the frogs legs from getting sucked in and stuck but that sounds like it'd work great. I've lost probably 8 frogs over the past several months to 300 gph filters. Good think they are only 2 bucks each. The molly was apparently terrorizing them to death in my 10 gallon. I guess I'll be bringing the molly back tomorrow. I'm not sure what else to put in the tank. I could just leave the gourami in there by himself. It's not a dwarf. It's a regular blue. I'd love to find a green phantom pleco but it'll destroy my grass and I'm not sure 10 gallons is suitable for it anyway.

 

[piao liang yu]

I had considered using some panty hose to keep the frogs legs from getting sucked in and stuck but that sounds like it'd work great. I've lost probably 8 frogs over the past several months to 300 gph filters. Good think they are only 2 bucks each. The molly was apparently terrorizing them to death in my 10 gallon. I guess I'll be bringing the molly back tomorrow. I'm not sure what else to put in the tank. I could just leave the gourami in there by himself. It's not a dwarf. It's a regular blue. I'd love to find a green phantom pleco but it'll destroy my grass and I'm not sure 10 gallons is suitable for it anyway.

i initially tried hose to cover the intake, but it did not work for me. it for some reason grimed up too quickly and restricted flow. could have been an indication that i had too much algae buildup at the time or something else was off, but it just did not work for me. i got the fluval edge pre-filter sponges and have been great since. and you say you lost eight frogs before you realized how they were dying or you knew what was happening and continued to put more new ones in the same danger? anytime you notice an issue do not assume the new ones will be different. correct the problem first then introduce new life forms.

don't mean to be a jerk. i am just speaking from experience from what i have witnessed from others. some folks believe something happened was just a fluke deal and will not happen again. just because a fish or animal is low cost does not mean it should be considered expendable.

 

[Coyne]

You live in Cali? You can bring him over and watch him get bullied by my 2 puffer fish!!! Lol. I'd lose the mollie and keep gourami. Or take him back and get a new mollie. I think you just picked the alpha ***khead of the bunch. You can find a mollie for the tank. Never had an issue like that with a mollie.

+1 to that. I've got a male Dalmation Molly in my main tank that is constantly having food stolen from him by Serpae tetras at feeding time.
Conversely, I have 3 female mollies in my QT and one of them makes the other two wait until she's done eating before she lets them get anything.
Luckily it's just a feeding time pecking order and not full on bullying.
I think Mollies are one of those "personality" fish and you never know how they'll behave.

 

[germanyt]

i initially tried hose to cover the intake, but it did not work for me. it for some reason grimed up too quickly and restricted flow. could have been an indication that i had too much algae buildup at the time or something else was off, but it just did not work for me. i got the fluval edge pre-filter sponges and have been great since. and you say you lost eight frogs before you realized how they were dying or you knew what was happening and continued to put more new ones in the same danger? anytime you notice an issue do not assume the new ones will be different. correct the problem first then introduce new life forms.

don't mean to be a jerk. i am just speaking from experience from what i have witnessed from others. some folks believe something happened was just a fluke deal and will not happen again. just because a fish or animal is low cost does not mean it should be considered expendable.

I can't say for sure that all of them were killed by the filter. Some would just start hovering near the surface for a day or two. I've also waken up to find them stuck to the intake dead. And at one point I had 6 frogs in the tank at once and they were dying off. That was after the initial 2 my sister bought for me. Those died and I got 6 more and then they all died. I just target fed the 1 I have left some bloodworms. No filter problems yet but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Either way, I can't keep him in the 10 gallon with the molly and gourami. He'll die in there no doubt.

 

[germanyt]

So I'm trying something out. I removed the jungle tower deco I had in the tank.

This one.

I also removed the in-tank filter a few days ago and put my TF20 back in it. I had the 20 in my 55 gallon with my TF75 but I just bought a Fluval Aquaclear 70 300gph to go with my 300gph TF75. So no I have plenty of filtration in my 55 and it freed up the 20 to use on my 10 gallon.

The new decor in the 10 gallon. I just took some extra rocks I had and threw it together to fill in areas where I have no grass planted. I imagine I should buy an extra bunch of grass to fill it in but I didn't feel like running to the store.

So no, except for the larger rock in the back left there are no hiding places in the tank. Now I can get a better idea of how these two play together. It's nice to see the gourami out and swimming around.

In other good news. My larger bunches of hairgrass have little tiny bubbles streaming off of it. I assume it's O2.

 

[germanyt]

Another thing. If you expand the first pic in my above post on the left side of the tank you'll see what looks like water on the outside of the glass. It's like a stain or deposit or something on the glass. I've tried scrubbing it and using a razor blade to scrape it off with no luck. Anyone know what it could be. My sister gave me this particular tank and I'm not sure what all she used it for.

 

[Bowhunterking]

I'm not sure what else you have in the tank, but mollies do like to be in schools with plates, other mollies, and or sward tails. That may help tame him some. I had the same problem when I lost most of my stock and left me with just my mollie and my red tail shark, I decided that I didn't really want anymore mollies so I took a diff approach and got a school of tiger bard to calm him down, although he obviously didnt school with them it still commend him down seince there wasn't just one other fish in the tank to focus on.
Hope this helps

 

[germanyt]

I'm not sure what else you have in the tank, but mollies do like to be in schools with plates, other mollies, and or sward tails. That may help tame him some. I had the same problem when I lost most of my stock and left me with just my mollie and my red tail shark, I decided that I didn't really want anymore mollies so I took a diff approach and got a school of tiger bard to calm him down, although he obviously didnt school with them it still commend him down seince there wasn't just one other fish in the tank to focus on.
Hope this helps

He seems to have calmed down. Every once in while he'll bug the gourami til it chases him off. Today it occurred to me thought that I've never seen my gourami eat. I give them either flakes or shrimp pellets. And my molly does this little dance move where he moves back and forth about 1/2 an inch rapidly near the bottom of the tank. It's a little odd.

 

[freshwaterashley]

My mollies are the same way they pretty much run my tank. I have 5 fenales and they school together.. noonee eats until they have had their fill first... i would say you should prolly trade your molly for a new one... or add more fish to the tank so he/ shedoesnt feel as alpha... i added some guppies and platysto my tank and they have seemed to calm down a bit.. who hasseniority? The molly or the gourami

 

[freshwaterashley]

i had some guppies that were bullying my other fish. what i did from advice i had read somewhere. take the bullies out, (only the bully) make some changes to the decor of the tank and then reintrocuce the bully fish to the tank. if this does not solve the problem then rehome the bully. i would not consider taking a peaceful fish back over the bully. what if he bullies others as well after you have returned your peaceful gourami?

also, you mentioned your adf's were being killed by the filter intake. you should get a fluval edge pre-filter sponge and slip over the intake. it is like $2.50 at petsmart and $2.99 at petco. it is for a fluval edge, but it works on my ac110 and ac70 HOB's and also works on a friend of mine's canister filter intake. just work it on. u need to turn filter off once a week, remove the pre-filter sponge and clean it, but it works great.

Also agreed.. try putting yourbully in an isolation tank for a few hours .. rearrange the taank .. and then reintroduce .. sometimes a little alone time is good.. do you have cave like decor for both of them? You may need to have one for each so they can both stay out of eachothers way at times

 

[JadeGreen]

Another thing. If you expand the first pic in my above post on the left side of the tank you'll see what looks like water on the outside of the glass. It's like a stain or deposit or something on the glass. I've tried scrubbing it and using a razor blade to scrape it off with no luck. Anyone know what it could be. My sister gave me this particular tank and I'm not sure what all she used it for.

Sounds like hard water buildup. I use vinegar to wipe it off. Safe to use around an aquarium, also. It works best if it soaks on the buildup for a bit before you wipe it off.