Guppy bullying - do I need to intervene?

[Scyerline]

Yesterday I added 3 male guppies to my boyfriend's cycled 20 gal tall tank that I set up for him. Aside from a few live plants that are all healthy and growing, they are the first living thing to enter it. They were just fine yesterday and were showing no signs of stress whatsoever. All 3 of them stuck together.

Today the largest male (orange) is constantly chasing another one (blue). It's strange because he is only going after the blue - my yellow guppie is completely being left alone. The blue, who used to be very active, just hides near the bottom now... unless he's being chased, which is 90% of the time.

Will this harassment be harmful for my blue? I understand that males often fight for dominance but this is entirely one sided. They've never "faced off" or anything.

I've never owned guppies before so I'm not sure how their behavior works. Will the aggressive orange harass other community fish (my boyfriend wants cories and maybe tetras)? If so, should I remove him?

 

[Luananeko]

Male guppies will eventually nip and bully each other to death unless you have one of the following scenarios:
1) There are at least 2-3 females for every male guppy in the tank.
2) You have only males and at least 6+ of them in the tank.

The first scenario works because the males will be so busy chasing the girls they won't care about the other males. The latter scenario works since the larger numbers prevent any one guppy from being overly harrassed. I keep all males in my 75 gallon and every time I dropped below 6 the aggression would get out of hand and I'd start losing guppies to stress and destroyed fins.

 

[phoenixkiller]

I say get 6 females, and that should distract them enough. Females always calmed things down in my tanks, and I think you can guess why.

If you don't want to have a ton of guppies in the tank (9 guppies) then you would have to remove the problem guppy. I dunno if the other two are gonna live a perfect life together either, so my opinion is to get a bunch of females.

Hope I helped!

P.S. It looks like this is your first post here, so I shall be among the first to say welcome to Aquarium Advice!

 

[RedNeck]

I have three males and they give chase once in a while but fins arn't nipped and for the most part are nice to each other.....Maybe I just got lucky

 

[phoenixkiller]

I have three males and they give chase once in a while but fins arn't nipped and for the most part are nice to each other.....Maybe I just got lucky

Yep, I would say you got pretty lucky.

 

[Luananeko]

I have three males and they give chase once in a while but fins arn't nipped and for the most part are nice to each other.....Maybe I just got lucky

Age is a factor as well... You're more likely to have them be nice to each other if they're still young. As they grow up and get older you're more likely to have them bully each other to death. Removing the alpha isn't as solution either, as the remaining two will start picking on each other instead. It's pretty rare to hear of anyone keeping less than 5 adult males together with no females and not have aggression issues.

 

[RedNeck]

Hmmmmm. I better think about stocking then. I was just going to do a dg but maybe I should add 3 more guppies and a dg. Plus my 4 peppered cories..thats got to be close to overstocked in a 15gal. hex. Sorry for highjacking this thread......Im done.

 

[phoenixkiller]

Hmmmmm. I better think about stocking then. I was just going to do a dg but maybe I should add 3 more guppies and a dg. Plus my 4 peppered cories..thats got to be close to overstocked in a 15gal. hex. Sorry for highjacking this thread......Im done.

lol... you're good IMO...

So to sum it up, your best options are:

1. Get 3 more males
2. Get 6+ females
3. Get rid of all the guppies (Not the best option IMO)

Let us know what you decide!

 

[jetajockey]

Not to be contrary but there isn't a magical number, i.e. getting 5 males who fight all the time and then adding 1 more isn't going to necessarily change a whole lot in their behavior. It's not a bad guideline, but I keep a lot (A LOT) of guppies and I stock them differently in every tank. The males do bug one another but for the most part I've not seen them outright killing one another or anything like that. I have some tanks with all females, some tanks with mixed, more females than males, some tanks with more males than females, and some that are similarly stocked to one another with a basically even mix of sexes. Each situation seems to be unique and I've not really settled on a particular ratio or standard.

Just my experience.

 

[phoenixkiller]

Not to be contrary but there isn't a magical number, i.e. getting 5 males who fight all the time and then adding 1 more isn't going to necessarily change a whole lot in their behavior. It's not a bad guideline, but I keep a lot (A LOT) of guppies and I stock them differently in every tank. The males do bug one another but for the most part I've not seen them outright killing one another or anything like that. I have some tanks with all females, some tanks with mixed, more females than males, some tanks with more males than females, and some that are similarly stocked to one another with a basically even mix of sexes. Each situation seems to be unique and I've not really settled on a particular ratio or standard.

Just my experience.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that there isn't any magic number .

As I said, an even (Or close to even) number of males to females should keep aggression to a minimum. JMO.

 

[Daddynev]

Hi

I had 4 male yellow cobra guppies which I introduced all at one time as the first fish in my tank.. They all got on very well together and I never saw any aggression. One of these died a couple of weeks ago and I have since introduced a male blue guppy in its place. It has been in the tank for a week now and is constantly chasing the other guppies. He seems quite a bit larger too than the others. It leaves the 6 neon tetras alone. Does it matter that he is a different type of guppy? The lfs said they'd all be ok together. Should I really have bought another yellow cobra? Or two blue ones to introduce them in pairs. So, should i remove it as I am concerned for the others. I don't have another tank so shall I try to take it back to the Lfs. Alternatively, should I buy another new blue one to keep him company or increase the stock level to the 6 guppies you mention in the threads above? My tank size is a rectangular 35litres currently stocked with just the 4guppies and 6neons and fake plants etc. The Lfs said I could put more in but I don't want to over do it. Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

[Luananeko]

Just like with people, fish have their own personalities as well. Some guppies handle being in a bachelor pad better than others. Sounds like you got one that was too used to having girls around constantly and took out his frustration on his fellows. Normally you can mix male guppies of all colors/sizes with no problems, regardless of the order they're added, though the larger the group the less aggression since it's more spread out. I have had the best luck when I don't keep less than 6 boys together, but some do fine in smaller groups. Adding in pairs doesn't matter since you're going all boys.