guppy fights

[balloon molly]

3 days ago i went to my LFS to see what was new.i looked in the guppy tank then i saw 2 red blonde guppies trying to get higher than the other.has anyone else has seen or heard of this.

 

[Robert]

if they were both males it was probably just a fight over females

 

[balloon molly]

yeah they were 2 males but there were no females.wich was odd since my lfs always had female guppies

 

[Robert]

were they biting eah other, or just chasing each other around??

 

[balloon molly]

no they were just trying to swim above each other.they kept thier attention on each other,all the other male guppies were just swimming around not giving a care to each other.only the two red blonde males were doing this.

 

[Robert]

maybe something about dominence??? i don't know

 

[pandapops001]

My guppies do this, they swim in circles around each other not losing sight, i'm sure they are male as they both have bright orange and black tails and the other is blue, i have 3 males and no females because the lady at the lfs said that they had been raised together without females and adding them now would cause them to fight between themselves for the female attentions. So to leave it as it is
I assume they are just playing as they swim happily most of the time together

 

[NinjaSmurf]

My two boys sometimes get confused and start chasing each other, then the one turns around like he's saying, 'I'm a guy you idiot!' and then they quick swim in seperate directions. Other times they both chase this one female and if they get too close the one turns and swims off for a minute before coming back. They're weird...

 

[SnowyzMom]

Yep that definitely sounds like an "I'm more macho than you are" kinda face off. They can concentrate on just one other guy and really show off, try getting the upper hand, like a dominance thing but without injuries. The males I have sometimes do that, I consider it a cross between flexing(in human males) and a walk off (think as in the movie Zoolander) 8) . Guppy males definitely do swim offs!

SnowyZMom B)

 

[fishrock]

my molly's do that too. i think its a dominence thing.

 

[Sasha]

I once had two female swordtails that would always try to be more dominant than the other. They would circle each other with their dorsal fin high and occasionally chase their opponent.

 

[plysha]

My Males do that all the time and my littlest male has the upper hand of all males in tank lol he's so cute about it though... two of my other males did get into it and ripped each other tails so now they have two tails ( don't know what to do about it)

now they just leave each other alone

Erin

 

[Simonlloyd219]

I've just got four guppies in my tank and one in particular (a red one with white belly) likes to follow/harass the yellow and blue one. It's like he's picking on the palest fish. Is he racist?

 

[Xavier]

I haven't seen it w/ guppies but i've seen it w/ swordtails. I had 2 males , an adult pineapple(no orange coloration at all), and a young red wag. the wag was always chasing around the females and doing this half- circle courting thing around them until the adult stepped in and the wag tried to escape but the pineapple was always one step ahead of him and then the wag showed his inferiority by sort of laying down to the adult on the gravel and ever since then he's been sort of the adult's sidekick, always picking on my male tequila sunrise guppy.