Male guppy mating behaviour

[Qwertyui]

Hello people!
So I got a tank with one guppy male and three females. Size of females is one large, one medium and one small. Ive read that male guppy prefer larger females and that seems to be true here as he shows interest in them in that order. The thing is that he displays very different 'mating strategy' with them.

To the largest female he is almost aggressive, nearly forceful, chasing her around and try to bump in to her from the sides. Kind of like 'a little less conversation more action' etc..

To the medium one he displays the complete opposite. Very tender. Dances to her, showing of his fins, flirting. Chasing seems very gentle compared to how he chases the large one.

The small one I got no real input since he show least interest in her.

So anyone experienced this? Any idea what causes these different strategies? Social structures? Has the large one already 'accepted' him and now he have to work harder trying to charm the other one?

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello people!
So I got a tank with one guppy male and three females. Size of females is one large, one medium and one small. Ive read that male guppy prefer larger females and that seems to be true here as he shows interest in them in that order. The thing is that he displays very different 'mating strategy' with them.

To the largest female he is almost aggressive, nearly forceful, chasing her around and try to bump in to her from the sides. Kind of like 'a little less conversation more action' etc..

To the medium one he displays the complete opposite. Very tender. Dances to her, showing of his fins, flirting. Chasing seems very gentle compared to how he chases the large one.

The small one I got no real input since he show least interest in her.

So anyone experienced this? Any idea what causes these different strategies? Social structures? Has the large one already 'accepted' him and now he have to work harder trying to charm the other one?

Guppies have a rather interesting breeding strategy. The males will try to mate with every female. They " TRY" but the reality is that the female controls which male's attempts will lead to fry. The different behaviors you are seeing is due to the female's sizes and not too unusual. The bigger female may have already accepted the male before so she's " easy" while the medium one may still be "shy" and needs to be courted which is why he's dancing for her. The smaller female is probably just too young so the male knows she's not a good breeding candidate. As she grows and matures, the male's attentions will towards her will change.
In nature, you will see one male to many, many females so in reality, our little trios are not really the most desired way for breeding for the specie. We do that so that one female doesn't get all the attention to the point that the male exhausts her and she dies from the stress. Had you gotten 3 females of the same size, the male's reaction to them would/ should be all similar.
Hope this helps.