I'd Like 6 Male Guppies - Advice?

[CezzaXV]

Hello everyone,

I've been considering getting 6 male guppies of different colours to add to my tank. I was told that having 6 would spread out aggression and hopefully stop any bullying happening.

I've had a read of the FAQs but the information is minimal. Just looking for a bit of advice on whether I should do it and any issues that might arise!

 

[Liquid skills]

Hello everyone,

I've been considering getting 6 male guppies of different colours to add to my tank. I was told that having 6 would spread out aggression and hopefully stop any bullying happening.

I've had a read of the FAQs but the information is minimal. Just looking for a bit of advice on whether I should do it and any issues that might arise!

hi ive never personaly had an agressive male guppy the bigger the number the less stress i suppose but ive only realy heard that about males with females they should be fine i couldnt think on them realy trying to kill each other

hope i helped

 

[Dieses Madchen]

It should be okay, but keep an eye out for aggression. I HAVE had aggressive guppies and they will sometimes roll the tank like they are the mafia, not often though. What else will be in the tank?

 

[CezzaXV]

They're going in with my cardinal tetras, cories, bamboo shrimp and apple snails.

It will put me a little overstocked, but I plan on getting a much larger tank by early 2012 at the latest (although before Christmas ideally), long before any of my fish reach adult size.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

As long as you have adequate filtration, and a good maintenance schedule, you should be okay. How big is the tank and how many tetras and cories do you have? Oh wait, just saw your signature You should be just fine with the guppies. Cardinals are rather small so they will have room and because the cories are bottom dwellers they wont hinder the movement of the tetras or guppies.

 

[CezzaXV]

As long as you have adequate filtration, and a good maintenance schedule, you should be okay. How big is the tank and how many tetras and cories do you have?

Details are in my sig. It's a 60L with a Fluval 205, which claims to be good for tanks up to 200L (my new tank, if I get the one I'm hoping for should be 165L). 8 cardinal tetra, 6 cories, 1 bamboo shrimp and 4 apple snails at present.


I do 10L (roughly 20%) water changes twice weekly, sometimes more.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Oh yeah, I think it will be fine. Hopefully someone will chime in and verify. My smallest filter tank in a 10g with a betta lol. I have mostly large tanks so I am not great with stocking on the smaller ones.

 

[CezzaXV]

Just seen your edited post Dieses.

Is it okay to have guppies of different colours in together?

My LFS claims cories of different types will shoal together but when I asked on here people were doubtful. Just want to make sure it's cool to have different coloured guppies together.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Yes that would be fine. I think having multiple colors is part of the appeal of keeping the guppies I personally do not keep them though, as I had a shoal of crazy ones. They actually school and terrorized everything in my tank. I am not saying this will happen to you. I think mine were mental.

 

[the_lock_man]

Just seen your edited post Dieses.

Is it okay to have guppies of different colours in together?

My LFS claims cories of different types will shoal together but when I asked on here people were doubtful. Just want to make sure it's cool to have different coloured guppies together.

It's fine. Guppies aren't a shoaling species as such, not like cories or tetras, but they will stick together. Mine are constantly chasing each other around, I have two yellow and one orange.

 

[IanL]

yeah,different colours are fine.I've got black,black/yellow,endlers,red and red/lack in mine,and they get on fine. Saying that,all the same colour DOES look good....

 

[willowstwin]

just throwing in my 2 cents...

I have 4 tetras and 6 male guppies, along with 16 unknown weirdo shrimp (were sold to me as amano hybrids but no1 can seem to ID them), and 2 apple snails. My guppies are AMAZING!!! I seriously seriously love them!! I have (colours):

1 lemon (small tail)
1 tuxedo (small tail)
1 yellow snake skin (small tail)
1 flame (small tail)
1 yellow and black patterned hybrid (large fancy tail)
1 endler hybrid - can see feint endler markings (large fancy tail)

I had 3 originally (the bottom 3) but decided I wanted more. When I put the top 3 in, the flame went crazy! In the hour after leaving the in the dark he had ripped the yellow fancy tailed ones tail, and was following the lemon around trying to nip his side fins. This went on for hours, him terrorising the lemon male, and I was seriously scared he would stress the lemon to death. So I ended up putting him in a large net in the tank to separate him for a few hours. I released him and he carried on with his abuse, but I had to make the decision to leave him overnight and see the aftermath in the morning (I thought the lights off might calm him). Sure enough, in the morning, everyone was still alive and he was calm(er). He still followed the lemon around, but it was more like the behaviour I'd seen all along with the 2 fancy tails - it seemed more like companionship than bullying (no charging or nipping).

Now, they're happy as ever. There's the occasional charge from one of them but it's literally a 1 second burst and no injuries. Sometimes they all follow each other in a conga line hahaha they love to play in the current the filter makes, wiggling their bodies like crazy then zooming against the current. And every now and then you can catch them at a sleepy time (although my camera is never charged when they're still )where you can look at their full beauty (they actually make me want to cry sometimes because of how beautiful they are!).

I have the most wonderful variety of colours, the added bonus of having all different colours is that you can name them all (my list top to bottom is Leonard, Raj, Sheldon, Lafayette, Rafael and Fabio ). Apparently my LFS have some black and red ones in at the moment, which I'd kill to get my hands on, but my friend who takes me to the LFS, his car has just died :'(

Go for it! Get guppys lots and lots of guppys!! I want a 98 litre just for male guppies, THAT's how much in love with them I am HAHA

 

[IanL]

It's funny,,you know.Years aago,guppies were almost looked down upon by experienced fishkeepers as just a "beginners fish" in some quarters....nice to see they are popular again...

 

[Seed_Lord]

Got 2 males and 6 females atm, one of the males is gay i think hes not aggressive always trying to poke the other male though...

 

[CezzaXV]

Update:

Since creating this thread, I've now got 7 guppies of various colours. They do sometimes spend some time swimming into the current of the filter and sometimes I worry it's too strong for them, but they've demonstrated many times that they can outswim the current if they try (they like to swim through the gap in the clip between the output and the glass - I'm convinced I'm going to wake up one morning to a stuck, dead guppy!) and there is plenty of space elsewhere in the tank where the current isn't so high.

I do notice the occasional bit of chasing but it never lasts more than a few seconds and all my guppies' fins are still intact so no harm done. I've been paying attention and they all do it from time to time - it's not any particular one more than the others.

EDIT: Sod's law - I came upstairs after writing this to find my lemon guppy's got a tear in it's fin. No signs of aggression in the tank though, it's just one of those things after reading about, I was expecting to happen from time to time.