Male Guppy Bullying

[coldjo]

Hello,

I recently started a small aquarium with two male guppies. At first the guppies seemed to get along great, but after the first few days the larger of the two began to bully the smaller one. I am not sure what is causing this (the LFS assured me having two male guppies would be fine) but I am really worried about the smaller fish. His tail is looking quite ragged from being bitten. I know that adding females would help with the male aggression, but I really do not want to deal with the fry. I have separated and reintroduced the bully, but that didn't seem to help (I don't have another tank to keep him in long term either).

My question is - what should I do to try and get them to stop fighting? If I need to, I could get a bigger tank with more fish, but would it be better to get more male guppies or would it be better to get a variety of fish? I just would like to stop the aggression and prevent any other aggression in the future. Aside from adding females (which I don't have space for in my tank now), what would be the best course of action?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[nirbhao]

Can you post a picture of the guppies?

We started out with two male guppies. When one started bullying the other, we took the bully back. It turned out that the fish we kept was female. And pregnant.

If you don't want to deal with fry, stick with males. Males fight over females, not territory, so they get along fine all boys.

Can you tell us a bit more about your tank? Size, parameters, how long it's been set up? That would be helpful information.

[coldjo]

The tank is a 2 gallon tank and has been set up for about a week now. Water temperature is in the mid 70's, I have been doing partial water changes, I have an air stone going, and there are places for them to hide.

[nirbhao]

How about pH, ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates? Do you have a filter?

I still suspect that you have a female, because what you have going on sounds a lot like what happened for us.

[GuppyGuy333]

I would suggest getting a bigger tank. it would be more stable/easier (besides the water changes).....plus bigger tank means more fish haha

I started it off with five males (four fancy and one cobra) when i did my research everyone suggests getting an odd number ( I don't know why) but the more males you have the more aggression is spread out among them.

when I introduced females to my tank....one male randomly died and suddenly the four left over males became more rambunctious and aggressive. I don't know if this is because I added females or the other male died and caused a rift in the hierarchy.

but even though my tank (55 gallons) has plenty of space, hiding spots (plants, rocks, driftwood) my males do sometimes bicker....usually about who is going to get a particular female and the dominant one will chase the other around the tank. you might just have a particularly aggressive male...which is very possible. I have one guppy that is definitely more aggressive than the others.
Recently I added some endler guppies and they are more rambunctious than my previous dominant fancy male, despite having a smaller size.

I hoped I helped.....Good luck

[JMeyer]

Just tell him to stop being mean

Seriously though, I would just give it some more time...if you can afford to do that. I don't have experience with guppies, but I do have 5 African cichlids which are known to be aggressive fish. I've had them for almost a year now and everything is fine, but at first one of the cichlids was super aggressive and territorial to all the other fish-he was also by far the biggest. After a while though, he calmed down and everything is pretty peaceful now. Of course, if like nirbhao said one is a pregnant female, none of this will matter. I'd first look up how to tell males from females then go from there.