Large bosemani and small bosemani rainbow - bullying?

[HeatherW]

Hi everyone, I posted a while ago about my large male Bosemani Rainbow nipping the tail of my smaller male rainbow. the large one is my only survivor of early days so I got him some tank mates. looks like he didn't like the boy and nipped his tail pretty bad. I moved the little guy into another tank to heal and today I moved him back in. I am trying to keep an eye on them to see if they are going to get along.
I am seeing some behavior where the big guy is right next to the little guy. no tail nipping, but is this bullying behavior? is my little guy ok or should I move him back out into the 20 gallon tank? I will attach a pic...

 

[HeatherW]

 

[Kushgodrex]

How many do you have? They need to school, and if there are any females they will probably fight, Mine have fought but never nipped at the tail.

 

[HeatherW]

I have the one large guy, but when all his buddies died I went and bought 2 turquoise rainbows, 1 female bosmani, and 1 male bosmani. Everyone gets along except the little boy is on the outs. I had other males in the tank originally and the all got along (with a girl in there too)

 

[HeatherW]

I just need to know if they are going to be OK together or should I move the smaller guy back into the 20 gallon tank

 

[Kushgodrex]

I would just watch carefully, you never know what's gonna happen. If you see a nipped tail, I'd take him out because if he loses enough fin he's gonna die. Do you have any take decorations that's sharp enough to be able to cut his tail fin?

 

[HeatherW]

No, it really was nipped... Here is a pic of him from before

 

[Kushgodrex]

Oh yeah, that's super bad, I would just watch him, if you need to move him, I would try to keep him in a school though, I got a male and female but it was 22$ for both so I couldn't get a school so I went to petco and they have Australians that aren't very pretty but they're 11$ or so, so I did that and I'm slowly replacing them and donating the Australians back to petco, I would do that if he starts getting his tail nipped again.

 

[manbeast]

Two males competing for the attention of one female never ends well, if you can't, or don't want to rehome the little guy maybe get a few more females (if you have room for them) and that should lessen the competition and the aggression

 

[HeatherW]

Two males competing for the attention of one female never ends well, if you can't, or don't want to rehome the little guy maybe get a few more females (if you have room for them) and that should lessen the competition and the aggression

thanks! that is a good idea. I didn't realize that if I added more girls it would make them less competitive.
Right now my little guy is just hiding in the plants. he did come out to eat last night, so that is good, but I am still very worried about him! do you think things will settle down? and no- I don't really want to get rid of him. I wanted more of the rainbows that is why I got him. Is there a magic ratio that I should be looking for? like I know with mollies and platies you need at least one girl for every boy - 2 would be better. is that the same for these guys?

 

[manbeast]

If you only have one female I might look at adding at least three more, I know when it comes to betta's it's recommended to have 5-6 females to one male as the males are so persistent with their sexual advances that they can harass a single female to death