Male guppy starting to get aggressive?

[RavenSong]

Hey guys,
I have a 10 gallon tank (20" L, 12" H, and 10" W) that has 6 guppies, 2 male 4 female. 2 I have had for a while and the other 4 are relatively new. The 2 I've had for a while is a male named Enzo and a Female named Gretta. Gretta is currently pregnant and so I had gotten more females so Enzo will stop harrassing her (I've had another guppy with them before that was supposed to be female but the store sold us a male on accident. He sadly got sick and passed away last night.) However, Enzo keeps ignoring the other females and keeps trying to mate with Gretta. As of recent, (within these past few hours) Enzo has randomly descide to claim the entire tank as his territory and is chasing everyone (except Gretta, he just keeps trying to mate with her) into hiding. My water is fine. What should I do? Please help

 

[GaryE]

If Gretta is close to dropping fry, Enzo will drive her crazy as there is only a short window for him to refertilize her for the next batch. They get obnoxious at that point.

You have a small tank and fish that can't get space away from each other. There's nothing you can do, short of getting a much larger tank. Male guppies are relentless.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Add a load of live plant matter to break lines of sight and give the poor old girl a chance at hiding from him now and again. That also means more fry are likely to survive, which can be a pro or a con, depending.
But in general, it's the nature of guppies, and they do establish a pecking order of sorts. With him being the oldest male/having been in the tank the longest, makes sense he'd be top dog.

 

[Freshyfishy]

Ditto

 

[Back in the fold]

Let the old boy have his fun. Life is short.

 

[emeraldking]

A male chasing a female (no matter if it's a specific female or not) is just nature. And dominance can occur but it will mostly pass when everyone knows his/her place within the hierarchy.

 

[Freshyfishy]

my male chased my female to death... oh yea, lets just let 40 something babies and the mother die.. don't give bad advice.

 

[Back in the fold]

@Freshyfishy Guppies aren’t bad. The males just get a bit frisky but male Killifish , of certain species , will chase females to death. Literally to death.

 

[Freshyfishy]

my guppy was bad

 

[emeraldking]

my male chased my female to death... oh yea, lets just let 40 something babies and the mother die.. don't give bad advice.

It's not bad advice at all... Aggression is something different than being dominant. A lot of people mix these two up...

my guppy was bad

I assume you had a bad guppy...

 

[Freshyfishy]

Yea, and you can also assume that male didn't live any longer either.

 

[RavenSong]

Ok, thank you all. I already have a lot of plants (here is a photo of my tank) and he doesn't really chase gretta around, he just follows her and does his little matting shimmy. I'm just worried about the other fish because he chases them into hiding. If he won't stop chasing them away any advise on what I should do?

Also, I got the guppies so they can breed (I'm going to feed the baby's to my turtles). Should I keep them in my main tank (idc is some get eaten by the other fish) or should I get a breeder box? I also have a 3 gallon tank that doesn't have anything, could I use that as a breeding tank? I'm kind of worried the babies with over crowd my big tank.

 

[Freshyfishy]

PLEASE DO NOT FEED BABIES TO UR TURTLES!! I will buy them, AND PAY SHIPPING!!!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Yea, and you can also assume that male didn't live any longer either.

Are you saying you killed the male because the female passed away??

Ok, thank you all. I already have a lot of plants (here is a photo of my tank) and he doesn't really chase gretta around, he just follows her and does his little matting shimmy. I'm just worried about the other fish because he chases them into hiding. If he won't stop chasing them away any advise on what I should do?

I really like the scape! That's lovely.
As the numbers of guppies increase, he'll either chill out a bit, or at least usually have any bullying behaviour be dispersed over many targets so it's less intense per fish.

Males constantly courting with the mating shimmy is typical for guppies, so I wouldn't fret over it, I had a male that only had eyes for one female too, wasn't a problem (the two yellows here, like a little guppy romance!)

Sometimes people will try removing all the males, rearranging the tank so it looks to the fish as though they've moved to a different section of the river and have to re-establish territories all over again, add the other fish first and give them some time to explore and settle, then add the bully last. This tends to work better with fish that define a specific territory though like cichlids, while livebearers aren't quite so rigid like that. But it's still worth a shot if it's bothering you.

Also, I got the guppies so they can breed (I'm going to feed the baby's to my turtles). Should I keep them in my main tank (idc is some get eaten by the other fish) or should I get a breeder box? I also have a 3 gallon tank that doesn't have anything, could I use that as a breeding tank? I'm kind of worried the babies with over crowd my big tank.

No point in a breeder box unless you're doing something like line breeding and it's important to you to save every single fry. Even then, it's really better to let the mother birth in the main tank and the fry grow out in the main tank or a separate nursery tank.

You could use a three gallon for small fry, but bear in mind it would also need to be cycled, and a three gallon is going to be overstocked and have poorer water quality than a ten gallon much faster. Fry grow much better in clean, fresh water, so increasing water changes when you have fry is always sensible. Bear in mind that each female guppy could churn out 20-30 fry per month, so the three gallon can't provide for overflow for very long, since it takes about three months for fry to reach shop-sellable size.

You're almost certainly better off just breeding in the main tank and stepping up the filtration/fast-growing plants and water changes in accordance with the bioload. Cycle the three gallon to use as a hospital or sales tank, to move the largest fry to in the days before you feed them to the turtles or take them to a store or sell them online maybe.

 

[Freshyfishy]

NO!! OF COURSE I DIDN'T KILL IT! I sent it to the LFS. I mean't it didn't live much longer in MY tank