overly aggressive rainbow fish

[Pipedreamer86]

Ok so a few weeks ago I added 5 turquoise rainbow fish to my established 150g aquarium. (0 amo 0 trites ~5ppm trates with weekly 30-40% water changes) at first all was well, they swam together, did not bother the other fish, then I.started noticing white spots, its.not.ich, I've dealt with ich, its more like peck marks, I noticed something similar in my black skirts a while back, I guess its the battle for alpha fish, well the battle for alpha fish seems to have cost me two of my rainbows, and now.the remaining 3 are at wits end erraticly darting about the tank and shooting towards one another. The corys don't seem to mind, the 2 dwarf gouramis don't seem to like the disturbance, but the black skirts also seem to think this is not even going on. Any advice would be awesome

 

[Tetra1990]

Interesting, you could try adding more rainbows, thus spreading aggression around, like with tiger barbs. Or you may have to rehome them.

 

[Laurie]

Maybe you could do a little rearranging of the tank. Sometimes that will help. Block the line of vision in the tank also. I have 7 rainbowfish and the smallest one gets those spots from being picked on sometimes too. When I do water changes I might move a plant or switch some ornaments to opposite sides. That usually helps.

 

[Wroberson]

I had that happen. I think I stress out my fish while overhauling the old tank. The only other aggression I see it in the battle for affection of the female. It's more of a swimming battle and display of color. The alpha male of the tank does chase all away when trying to spawn. Yes, the fish in the same species will compete for top fish in the group. Again, it's usually a short chase and there's a female as a prize.