Male Guppies Attacking Tank Mates

[o98CaseFace]

Hello everyone,

We’re looking for some help. My boyfriend and I got a 10-gallon fish tank a few days ago. We set it up and let it run for about a day before we added fish to the tank.

We decided to get 2 black mollies, 3 orange/yellow platies, 2 male guppies, and 4 shrimp. They were all living happily in the tank until about an hour ago. We noticed that the two male guppies were picking on our yellow platy. They were both attacking this poor fish at the same time and the poor thing was trying to hide in a corner of the tank behind decorations.

We initially thought that they were hungry and picking off food or debris for the platy. We fed them and continued watching. A few minutes later we noticed that the two male guppies were also picking on our two mollies as well as the other platies. We decided that it was best to remove the two male guppies from the tank, so we put them in a jar with tank water and they seem to be just fine.

Now, all the fish that remain in the tank and very lively and swimming around very happily.

Also, now that we are thinking about it, the two black mollies were sort of hiding under one of the other decorations that we have in the tank. They would always swim out of their decoration with one another to get food or just swim around in the tank.

We read other posts on this site that said male guppies need to have females or they will eventually kill one another competing for dominance (we didn’t know this when we were at the pet store). But these two fish haven’t been aggressive toward one another as the other posts have mentioned. Instead these two fish have teamed up and are aggressive toward all the other fish in the tank.

Can anyone offer any other advice on what to do? As I mentioned, we removed the two guppies from the 10-gallon tank and everyone seems happy. We just aren’t sure what to do with these two guppies…

Thank you very much!

 

[King Fisher]

You got a lot going on here......

You added several fish to a small, uncycled tank. I would just take the guppies back to the store because you need more than two together to attempt to control behavior. Your tank can't take anymore fish right now.

You really shouldn't have mollies in a 10g tank.

If you don't have a test kit to test your water I would go purchase one. API Freshwater Master test kit is good. Start doing 50% water changes every other day and only feed them every other day.

 

[Autumnsky]

Also when water parameters get out of the safe level often fish act out and appear to be aggressive and wild acting.

Adding fish and adding foods to feed them can compound bad things in the water, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.

Getting a liquid test kit like API or others is urgent.

Knowing what the parameters are is also very important, critical.

Getting a cycled tank would be a process you need to work towards for the health of your fish. Learning more about the nitrification cycle info can be found in this article and help with fish in cycle can he found in these 2 articles below that.

Guide to Starting a Freshwater Aquarium - Aquarium Advice
Fish-in Cycling: Step over into the dark side - Aquarium Advice
I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice