What is normal Guppy activity?

[Sharlene1385]

Lol, strange question I Guess. I've watched Guppies before in the stores and they seem to be quiet active, almost at times seeming to tremble because of their activity. Mine where kind of doing that. They stay at the top a bit and wiggle sometimes, almost like they wear cold. (Not possible, water is 78 F)
Then they calm down and swim around the tank, though they love the fake cliff shelf area. They are all male ( I can't have any breeding till I get larger tank) and they seem to always be hungry, picking at the rocks. Now, they seem to pick at each other while... defacating. Sick, eating poop, but I hear some pets/fish do that since it has good nutrients.
Sometimes they seem to nip each others under body fins (Ok so I failed fish anatomy, I think thats a dorsal... ) with out harming each other. All were bough from same tank and added together. So they should "Know" each other. Anyway, sometimes they chase each other and I've seen the one give a threatening fin pose, and then the others back off and everythings cool again.
I tried lowering water pressure at filter to help them not have to fight the current so much, I figured that might be the reason the acted flighty and would hardly go to the bottom. But I seem to remember them being top dwelling fish. Anyway. That helped and they are swimming all over now. They seem to have their buddies picked out. My Yellow one acts like a leader and the one rainbow one with specled tail really loves to hang with it. They others will come and all hang together and sometimes they just do their own thing.

Anyway, are they normal? Or are they actually fighting? I thought, maybe in a few weeks I'll get a couple of other fish (diff species) and see if it keeps them from fighting.

So not used to guppies, I know normal Beta, Platie, and Mollie behavior. Guppies making me feel stupid. lol

 

[Dakota Ice]

Im a guppy freak.. hehe... Well number one, you canot keep more than like 2 or 3 males together in a smaller aquarium without a female. They will harass eachother by fin nipping, etc. And the 'trembling' is a stress signal. Are their fins all spread out and the body kind of curved? Also, just hovering, and kind of trembling, right? Thats stress. If they're not doing all of those I listed then its not stress, and I'm wrong. (And I very well may be.)

Also, are you sure the 'threatening fin pose' wasnt the courtship dance? Male guppies curve into an S like shape and spread out all their fins, and dance around the female. Alot of males will do this to other males as well..

Im sorry to be the one to tell you most of those behaviors weren't good. But its nothing you can't fix! They were probably only stressed because of the move from the fish store to the tank, and you can cure the fin nipping by a female or two. (Actually I suggest more females than males, or else the males will stop harassing eachother and then harass her to death!) If you dont want to deal with the fry, just put them in tanks with larger fish.. and they wont last long. And if you dont like the idea of that, leave them in there with the adults and let them eat them.

Good luck!
Dakota

 

[Sharlene1385]

Ok, so I'm 1 over my limit. Um, I wondered about it being a mating dance, I don't know much about fish breeding. Lol, gay guppies, interesting.

They have calmed down now and I added some extra stress zyme stuff. They are doing much better. Now it seems that 2 will be together while the other 2 will stay with each other.... paired off. Then they seem to be ok. Yes I thought about just leaving the babies there, I've lost many platties that way that I didn't know where born. Hmm.
Well thanks. Glad to find someone that knows something. lol

 

[Dakota Ice]

Yes, yes.. there are many gay guppies.

Stress Zyme is good, it helps with their natural slime coat. I saw your 10 gallon stats, and 4 female guppies and your 4 males would fit perfectly in your 10 gallon. I'm glad I helped, and I hope your guppies do well!

Dakota

 

[Sharlene1385]

Thanks. Yeah I 've used that stress zyme before, even had a dying fish pull out of it when I used it once. Well they can turn straight later. They have to wait a couple of days for a paycheck. lol
One more thing, do I need to have a lower current for them? I've tested with the filter, but I'm not sure what they'd be happiest with? Low, High, or medium. Now they aren't fin nipping, but I swear they are bottomless pics. Who needs scavenger when you have these guys? lol. They would probably eat the rocks if they could.

Also, would they be ok if I just added some platties? Instead of female guppies? I don't want to sound stupid, but I have to ask. Just curious if the other species in there would maybe distract them. I've had mixed fish before, a sword tail had platie babies on me before. Also considered Neons or small tetra of somesort. I'd like to get something that will swim at a different range, the guppies keep hiding at the top. Also, I understand guppies like to hide a bit right?

I'd like to add more, really wish I had a larger tank. I do have an old 5 gal that broke its hood light when removing the light bulb, but it's there if I do have an emergency birth or anything. Also have kritter keeper, nice for hospital tank. Only thing that sucks is that the nicest fish that I like and try to keep, are always livebearers. Egglayers would be nicer since I don't have to worry if they had babies, I know my old neon must have done so, but I never saw them. Its hard, we always say we'll just ignore it if we find babies, but then we find them and save them. We've raised.... 3 groups. 1 plattie group (1st one for us) had like 21 and we lost all but 2 during the first few months. Sadly the last 2 where the victim of a bad heater. the 2nd was either a mollie/plattie mix or sword/plattie mix. I can't remember why we lost them. And the last was my sword tail one. Only 2 where born that we found, and lost them to a massive fish lost during water change (city clorinated water too much) Then I know one that we had (I guess we had 4 groups) we only saved 2-3, the others wear sadly born with a head and no tail. So we've had no luck with babies. And I don't have baby liquid food anymore, the last ones had to eat crushed flakes. I was told I could have all males to keep down on the breeding. Or less female to male ratio. Funny, Petco needs to study fish more, they sell them 5 for $5. We had 5 but the one died the next morning, of no fault, just seemed it was sick. It was very unsocial for a guppy, staying away from the other 4. Oh well, I almost always lose at least one when starting out or introducing. Guess only the strong survive, sad but true. Not so bad though, Now I only have the 4, and finding out I only should have 3... well, at least thats only 1 more over limit. Seems they worked out the problem their selves for now though, lots of the time, 3 stay together and 1 roams the tank, then they take turns on who is left out. Nice playground buddie, taking turns and being gay. lol