I thought guppies were non-agressive

[bosdabny]

I have had a few guppies in the past, and had a such an enjoyable experience with them. I decided to start a new tank, and just put three new male guppies in the tank. There are no other fish in there. I just walked back to the tank, and noticed that one of guppy's tail has a piece missing from it. I can only assume one of the other guppies did it! The other guppies I had were so peaceful and non-agressive, I just can't believe this happened. The injured fish seems to be OK, he's swimming around and eating. I observed the fish for several minutes and did not see any aggressive behavior. Is there anything special I should do to make sure the injured fish is OK? If I do find one of the fish to be aggressive, should I try to return him to the store? I really do not enjoy aggressive fish. I had a friend who had Tiger Barbs and all they did was try to kill each other all the time. I do not want that kind of tank. Any info you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Aphelila]

Guppys aren't agressive, but I've lately noticed that we have a male guppy that chases the female guppy around (for obvious reasons). I doubt that would cause any harm to either of them, however. It might be sick or have caught on something on your tank. My clown loach has a flatened nose now from probably something that happened from the tank. I doubt it was any of the other guppies, but you might want to keep a closer eye on them from now on.

 

[Alien Anna]

Guppys can be aggressive - I've eve heard of guppies attacking fish 10x their size. Male guppies are particularly aggressive to other male guppies, although they can get on OK if they have plenty of space.

 

[platypus]

Hi bosdabny,

Sorry to say I've had similar experiences whenever I've kept male guppies only - one of them will quite often get bullied by the others until he dies . The only solution to this I believe is to keep a mixture of males and females so the males are distracted! Although this obviously means you'll end up with babies, which you might not want.

 

[guppymonkey]

I have only noticed guppies being aggressive when there are not enough females to go around. When I just kept males I didn't have a problem but introduce a female and the fighting begins. It probably varies with each fish though. Every individual fish is a little different.

 

[bosdabny]

Thank you all for your replies. This has been very helpful!

 

[Chilled Babe]

I've got 2 platies and 12 fry in my 100 litre tank at the moment. I just bought 4 male guppies as I did not want any babies. As soon as I eventually put them in, it was a frenzy of fish. The guppies looked like they were trying to bite the platies or just annoying them. I switched off the lights to try and calm things down a bit. Things settled after 20 minutes. I don't know if it is because the tank has always been so calm and now that the guppies are in and much faster at swimming that it seemed so frantic. Is it ok to have platies and guppies together and also just to have 4 males only? 7 hrs later and there is still the odd ? pinch but the platies seem to be telling them to go away!! Hope platies don't get ill from the stress?? I did add some stress zyme before I added the new fish - didn't seem to work in my eyes!!

 

[christine]

Yep...i know, I have some of those mean male gupps too

 

[Juggernaut22988]

I think guppies are agressive when there are more male than females around

My sci class has a tank with only two male guppies
they bite eachother and chase each other all day!