Bully Guppy

[NannaLou]

Context: I’ve had a really rough few months, my mum fell on 19th December and broke her pelvis, she had quite advanced dementia, she’s been in hospital and then moved to a nursing home where she died very unexpectedly 3 weeks ago. My dad is elderly and I’m doing all the paperwork and organising for the funeral next week.

The issue, my tanks have been no-where near a top priority for the above reasons, and I lost 14/15 guppies which is totally my fault through neglecting water changes etc.

Over the last 7 days, I’ve got a bit more on top of things, cleaned the tank thoroughly, changed about 80% of the water and my ammonia and nitrite were zero, so I bought 6 more guppies…

Since yesterday afternoon (when the new fish were added) the original guppy has done nothing but chase the new ones, and he looks like he’s nipping at tails… there have been a couple of instances of him being ‘nose-to-nose’ with another guppy and they have been going round in circles.

I’m almost in tears again, I thought he’d be happy with some more friends, but this doesn’t seem to be the case - will he settle down or is it likely to have an unhappy ending..?

 

[NannaLou]

No advice on this guppy behaviour..?

 

[itiwhetu]

He is just saying" I'm boss" all is good, and will work out fine in the guppy world.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Sorry for the loss of mum, I hope things will improve for you in relation to caring for dad once things settle back down after mum's funeral

As for the guppy behaviour, I would think it is down to the aquarium boss getting the measure of the new arrivals and just getting them in line. I have found that most new fish get a dressing down by the older hands in the aquarium...nipping here and there, just bolshy "obey or I bite you" type thing

Things should settle once everyone understands the hierachy and calms down, as for how long it will take...could be days or weeks, really depends how brave/daft the new arrivals are and how far they push things with each other

Watch for any serious aggression that seems targetted on one particular fish or any major injuries. Have a standby aquarium handy incase things get badly heated but they should calm themselves in their own time.

 

[ClownLurch]

Sorry for your loss.
Ive noticed that guppies together seem to merely bicker but with other types of fish it gets nasty with biting etc. I had loads back in the 70s and only remember chasing. The ones I’ve had recently always contained a bad guy. I’ll not be having any more.

 

[NannaLou]

Thank you x He seems a little calmer this afternoon- I’ll keep an eye out for any serious aggression, but he did seem to be targeting everyone equally