swordtail conflict

[zeo]

hey,

i've kept tropical aquarium before, which grew from a small hexagon tank to a 7 footer but this was over 10 years ago.

Anyway I recently decided to start a new aquarium again on my own, and got tropical live breeding fishes.

Anyway yesterday my friend asked me to look after some of his fishes for him which he gets a new tank (old one cracked)..

Anyway my male swordtail has always been a bit of a bully in my tank, picking on most of the others but when his male was added to the tank it seems to be going for it non stop. the only time its not attacked is when it goes and hides in the plants but as soon as it comes out my goes for it straight.

I was wondering how long will this go on for before it settles down, or will this be an on goin thing. So far i havent noticed any real damage to the other swordtail, for some reason it doesnt fight back but only hides in the plants.

 

[aernympha]

Ur swordtail is proabbly just securing his dominace.... and maybe u have a more dominate swordtail ,it happens to my platys one is more important and he always chances him away from the females especially his favourite female lol.... i hope this helps i think it will carry on ... if there are females to fight over or they might just be devloping territorys.. hope this helped u ...

 

[sucky fish are cool]

Sometimes if you rearrange something in the tank slightly,like a plant, it can distract the fish enough to forget that the other swordtail is new, or you could isolate your own swordtail for a day or two and reintroduce him into the tank, that way he may not be as territorial.

Definitely something to be weary of though. I had a golden gourami and introduced two swordtails into my tank, within a day the golden gourami had hassled them so much half of their scales were gone from him nipping at them and they both ended up dying. I had to get rid of the golden gourami so I swapped him at the pet store for another fish. I felt really bad for the swordtails and didn't know what to do at the time, the pet store said that isolation of the gourami and reintroduction could have worked.

Hope this is helpful.

 

[zeo]

Yesterday I introducded 3 new fishes to my aquarium;-

1 Female (dark orange) swordtail
1 Golden/Yellow female mollie
and 1 Male betta
(I know, didnt originally plan on getting him, was a gift from a mate after it didnt do so well in his tank, all it did was hide for a like a week or 2, doing much better now in my tank, and supprisingly his is really non aggressive, havent seen him go for any fish including my guppies, even with the lights closed. All he seems to do is fight his own reflecting on the tank glass.)

Before adding the fishes I gave my tank a clean, keeping 90% of the old water,
Under gravel filters are serrously crappy, and dont really do **** all.

Anyway I rearranged the tank layout, got rid of the old pipe undergravel filter and put the sythened old tank water back into the tank, then after a short period of waiting for tank to settle down and temp to get back to norm I reintroducded the fish.

As the as all the fish were added, I made sure to add my male swordtail last.
As soon as he went into the tank, he went straight after both the new female swordtail and the new female mollie, not mating (well did a little with the female swordtail) but attacking them untill both have run into the plants. As soon as they try to leave the plants he goes in for another attack.

He doesnt seem to go for the beta however, who still at this point seems to be attacking his reflection.

My male mollie tried to mate with the new female mollie, but ever attempt lead into the swordtail attacking the female mollie first, then both the swordtail and male mollie got into a small fight, leading the male mollie in giving up and going back to the old female.


IS this just a temp thing, now all that both the new female mollie and swordtail do is hide in the plants, staying in the same position, and not moving at all.

I know this is strange and prob def nothing to do with it, but I've also noticed that it seems my swordtail has only been attacking the fishes from a certain petshop.

I noticed this fact also when i had my friends fishes, it kept only going for the ones from that certain petshop, and not from my local petshop. e.g.

Both the new female mollie and female swordtail are from petshop 2
whereas the male beta is from petshop 1.

With my friends fishes, the ones I looked after for him where all from petshop 2, and the only ones he attacked.

The rest of my fishes are all from Petshop 1... weird eh?

ohwell anyway I may try removing my male swordtail for a day then reintroducing him at night.

Or anyone got any other ideas?

 

[zeo]

bump

 

[zeo]

well I took the swordtal out of the tank and kept him in a seperate container for the entire day, As soon as I had removed him the other 2 fishes, new female mollie and new female swordtail both came out of the plants and started swimming round the tank happyly.

That night since it was pretty cold, I decided to put him back into the tank.
It had made no difference, as soon as he went into the tank, he started attacking both the new female mollie and swordtail untill they ran into the plants again.

Argh....


Anyone got any other suggestion on what I could do?

 

[zeo]

OK How Bout I Stick All 3 Of Them In To A Small Tank, With No Hideing Places, For Say A Day?

Any Chance By The End Of The Day They'd Get Along?

 

[rosierabbit]

you seem to be sending messages to yourself so i thought i should send one! imho, you got yourself one evil fish there !! maybe he'll calm down soon? hmm... maybe an smb comment is needed!!

 

[canis_lupus]

o that's not good......when i introduced my female molly 2 my male he went mad but now they won't leave each other's side..no nipping at all there are no other fish with them and it's a small tank (which i will b getting rid of) so they just had a mutual agreement good luck