# 2 guppies won't get along



## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

So here is what is going on. I have a yellow guppy (history of nipping tails off others) and a blue guppy (disgruntled over yellow guppy taking his tail). These two do not get along. They are both the biggest ones in the tank (29g). So about 2weeks ago (maybe a little longer) I set up a female tank (10g) in my sons room. In this tank I had 2 females. I put the yellow one in there with them for a week, but he was too eager to please, so I returned him to the large tank and put the blue one in the female tank, same thing. They bug both females so much I had to take them out. so now at least one female is very pregnant (expecting in a week or so) and the other one is in a breeding net because she was picking on preggo female pretty badly. So now the preggo female is ALONE in the 10g and the other female is in the big tank but in a net. Well the blue m.guppy and the yellow m.guppy will not leave each other alone. Constantly "battling" each other, so I put the blue one in with the f.guppy in the breeder net. I need a little advice on what to do with all these guppies that can't get along. Do I get more guppies? F or M? I was just planing on waiting for the babies to use those to restock, and keep the separated (M from F) so I don't get millions of babies.. I need a little help on this one.

*c/p* THX


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

My first suggestion would be that you need two females to every male in a mixed gender tank. Less than that and you have all kinds of trouble and nobody is happy. For another thing, every female about to drop should be alone, because any fish with her will pick off fry. Some strains the other female will not eat all the fry, but the total number of fry will be reduced, often by 1/2 or more simply by having a second fish there. The mother herself may eat fry as well, but I find this is less of a problem than the 2nd fish. 

With regard to the males sparring and damaging each other's tails. I've never had males hurt each other. I've had as many as 30 males in an all male tank and never had any actual damage to tails. I wonder if it is possible that the water parameters might need tweaking. They do spar, and they do chase and nip, but normally a fish has a slime coating that protects their skin and keeps them from having damage from such things. But if the ph is off, or there is too much ammonia this can cause the slime coating to be sloughed off, making the delicate fins of the guppies more prone to injury. Under those conditions, even too fast a water current can tatter their tail fins. 

I'd start by adding stress coat and maybe some melafix to your tank, then do a whole boatload of water tests, checking to see what your parameters are: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph, and see if there isn't something that could be improved. If that's not it, I'd check and see if maybe your fish don't have a case of fin and tail rot. Its really common for fish to pick at each other's injuries, and if one of them has fin rot the others will pick at it, and that could also be what you're seeing. 

Certainly if one of them is injured, however they came to be that way, they should be isolated. While the number of tanks is probably getting out of hand, you can always go for the 2 gallon pickle jar solution - I put the smallest sponge filter I can find and one of those itty bitty pad heaters in a 2 gallon pickle jar and it works just fine as a quarantine/hospital tank. Saves a lot of money on medication, and it is easy to store when you don't need it (although it is a good idea to keep the sponge filter going in your main tank when you don't have the quarantine tank up and running, so it always has a good load of biofilter bacteria going on it.)


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

Thanks for the advice. 

My water is fine. PH is 7.8 has been since the beginning. AM 0 NI 0 NA 5. I know the yellow one is aggressive. Not sure if its trying to get dominance over the others or what but it has taken the tail off of 2 other. I've been waiting for the preggo F to give birth to add to my brood. But it looks like I will have to buy some more females to balance it out. I have 5 males so how many females should I have? I already own 2 females (they usually stay in the smaller 10g tank by themselves)


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## Kaosu (Nov 13, 2010)

i would say 3 females to every male minimum.


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

So I am going to be overwhelmed by guppies, both in the large tank and babies *sigh*


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

I separated the yellow M.Guppy out from the large tank and the tank has taken on sort of a calm. The more and more I think about it, the more I think I need to get it, its own tank. I was thinking of a desktop 2.5g. My husband isn't going to be happy about it. Either that or trade it in for a different fish. *sigh*


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Once one gets pregnant you can separate al you want and they will still produce young. The females can continue this without the male for quite a while. I say leave them alone and let them do their thing. If you don't want to be overwhelmed with babies then don't separate the mother. It will thin your herd down.


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

So basically let it be a fish eat fish tank. i.e. population control?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

It does work and at least the other fish will get live nourishment from it. I don't do it on purpose, I just don't have the tanks to separate everything. Put adequate cover in the tank to at least give them a chance. Java moss is good for this and artificial breeder grass works.


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## Lil Gashog (Dec 1, 2010)

Uhhh maybe u can fix the males lol like they do dogs if thats possible lol


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

How many tend to "survive" that way?


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## NeonShark666 (Dec 13, 2010)

Male Guppies love to chase and mate with Female Guppies. Male guppies also chase and harass other Male Guppies, if there are no Females around. This is what they do. They are just over-sexed fish!


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

How many survive varies. I'm actually pretty happy if about 5 survive per birth. I have no clue how many they actually have. For some reason, my Gups tend to give birth without looking really fat and laden with babies so I never catch them in time to make other arrangements. Not sure why that is. My Guppy tank has quite a few Platies in it. Two females that I have that are over a year old and very healthy tend to weed out the weak of the litters.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

I would guess having more males in the male only tank would help to spread the attention out. If there were say six of them the other males would get a break.


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

a fully mature (say year old, well grown) female guppy can have 20 to 60 babies. You can do the free range deal, all the guppies in a community and the babies wherever you will, but each successive generation will be smaller and smaller, and the colors will blend and become more and more like wild type until eventually you get feeder guppies. That's actually where feeder guppies come from. They aren't wild guppies, they're just guppies that are pond grown (or big tank grown) in a mass community with just food and not a lot of other interference. Sometimes you'll see feeders that look a little more fancy, because in big operations often culls will end up in the feeder pond. 

A fancy type guppy isn't any more natural to the species than a poodle is to the dog species. You let dogs run around and breed with whoever they like without human interference, their characteristics blend and the ones most suited to that life predominate (you lose all your french bulldogs and chihuahuas to undercompetition, and you get mostly pits and labs and such) Same with guppies. 

With guppies you get small fast males with small tails predominating because they're the most successful breeders. Females prefer males with orange spotted tails (according to research). Guppy babies that aren't isolated from the adults don't feed as well, and just don't grow as fast or as big. They have to spend a lot of time hiding when young and don't tend to catch up. Underfed moms tend to have small broods of smaller fry. So you get small parents plus an underfed lifestyle, which tends to pretty quickly lead to smaller and smaller generations. This is not a big problem, they'll still be pretty and interesting and won't go all the way to feeders for years. Most people don't keep their guppies that long. Usually in an overcrowded situation (which can creep up on you in free range tanks) you will get some kind of crisis - a disease or parasite or some kind of water quality crash, and the population will tank. 

I would decide how many fish are appropriate to the tank, and whenever the fish go above that, to trade or give away excess fish, to occasionally trade out fish for new ones to refresh the bloodline (intense inbreeding is not so good) and to keep a lot of live plants in the tank, both as shelter for young, and to help keep the water quality in good trim. I would trade out excessively aggressive individuals (you think he's a pain, think about how annoying his offspring are going to be) in favor of good community members. If what you want is a community tank, that's the kind of thing to think about.


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