GuppyLog || male guppy aggresion? or is the bullied one female?

New to Guppylog?
Immediate Help

Conversions and Calculator
Conversions and Tank volume calculator

Add yourself to our guppylog map
Guppylog Members

* Change as much water as often as you can! *
Inkmaker

Front Page · Everything · News · Ask Guppylog · Diaries

male guppy aggresion? or is the bullied one female?
By newbie2guppies, Section Ask Guppylog Posted on Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 05:31:28 AM PST Tags: (all tags)

Hi there, I'm a brand new guppy owner. I purchased 3 males yesterday and they're in a 30 litre Biorb tank. I have spent the last several hours researching info on this site and have found it a great help. However I'm still worried.

One of my guppies (the smallest one) is constantly chasing and nudging my biggest guppy and will not give it a minute!! The bullied one now appears to be becoming distressed. I was actually considering a few hours ago that the bullied one might be a female as he/she is considerably bigger than the other two and seems to have a bit of a belly on him/her? However i cant seem to see a gravid spot and the anal fin appears to be similar to the others but its very difficult to see in these tiny fish? Surely the pet store couldn't have sent me home with a female one? If this fish does turn out to be female its going to be a big problem as I don't wish them to breed!

If it's not female but a male then what do I do about the bullying? I've read a fair bit about flirting and it really doesn't appear to be this.
Should I take the aggressive one back to the shop? Why is it only being aggressive toward one of the fish and not the other? Would putting more males in help? I've turned the temperature down slightly as I read that the higher the temp is , the more aggressive they can be?

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks in advance joanne

< What's wrong with my guppies? | What's up with feeder guppies? Do they ever grow bigger than fancy guppies and look nice? >

Menu

· create account

· F.A.Q. For Newbies!

· Immediate Help For Newbies!

· search

· Scoop Info

· Our Tanks

Login

Make a new account

Username:

Password:

Related Links

· More on Behavior
· Also by newbie2guppies

male guppy aggresion? or is the bullied one female? | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Thank you for reading around some. Hopefully (none / 0) (#1)
by unclescott on Sun Aug 26, 2007 at 09:00:40 PM PST

that helped you sort through some of the explanations about that male guppy. [Of course there's alway the possibility that hormones are just poring out of his ears. That the best explanation some teachers can give for suddenly aberrant behavior among Junior High kids. ;) ]

Assuming that the chased guppy is not a female, you might eventually have to return the chasing male or buy a few more males. If your tank hasn't cycled yet, I wouldn't buy more fish yet. Please check out cycling in the Immediate Help stuff here.

LOL! I did a Google search for male guppy and in the second row under Male Guppy is a very female guppy! Google has the bad habit of including every photo in an article on male guppies or whatever the topic is.

Googling pair of guppies gave several hits which were other kinds of fish. In a site called A Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Singapore they offer a diagram of the modified anal fin of another livebearer, a common Gambusia. Such a copulatory organ is called gonopodium.

http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/freshfish/text/224.htm

They also show fancy guppies and carry an image of a wild (feral) pair of guppies. The much larger female very clearly has a very large dark spot call the gravid spot. She is close to dropping a lot of fry! The male is a little twerp in comparison. It is hard to see his gonopodium.

By the way, Singapore is a long swim for common Gambusia from the eastern US. And it is just as long a swim for wild guppies from Trinidad or the northern shore of South America!

These images may be of more use.
http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Livebe6.jpg
http://galerie.zierfischverzeichnis.de/albums/userpics/10001/normal_poecilia_copulation.jpg

A very young male:
http://www.guppywest.com/GuppyCultMale1.JPG

If we wish to sort the young guppies into groups of males and females we have to look for the female's gravid spot. Males like that one above are easy to miss.

Fancy guppies have come a long way from their wild brethren. If we just let anybody breed with anybody, they will regress towards the wild type. :(
http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/freshfish/text/224.htm

So after looking at the above images, is your larger guppy (that phrase set off alarm bells) a male or a female? If they are all males, we'll consider at least one other possibility.

Re: Thank you for reading around some. Hopefully (none / 0) (#2)
by newbie2guppies on Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 05:24:18 AM PST

Thank you very much for your pictures of the differences between male and female guppies. Ive been googling and resourcing sites like a crazy woman over the past few days. I've come to the conclusion that he is definately a male and your pictures completely clarified this for me. He definately has a gonopodium. He is however quite fat and chesty and there is a distinct difference in size between him and the other two males. Im assuming he is just more mature than his mates and has been a bit too well fed! LOL.

The chasing has calmed down ever so slightly and ive seem him standing up for himself once or twice when it all gets too much!! Hopefully it will get better as i really dont want to return any of them to the shop. Yeah overactive hormones or what?? I've no intentions of adding any more fish until the cycling process is finished. In fact im about to do my 2nd nitite and nitrate testing and my 1st small water change. Im rather over awed about the whole cycling thing and a bit apprehensive about the welfare of these fish. It think ive read too much info on new tank syndrome and such like!? I cant believe all this info is so new to me as my goldfish recently died after 18 years of keeping him alive and very healthy. The only thing i ever did with him was fortnightly partial water changes, filter changes (sponge)every 6 weeks or so and just some tank cleaning when required. I never tested the water for anything. Such ignorance!! However he did get a lot or treatment when he suddenly came down with swim bladder and became partially paralysed down his right side. Nothing helped (treatments, hospital net and peas) as im sure now that it was just old age.

So I'll keep a close eye on the chasing behaviour and hopefully it will get better, particulary if i add more fish at a later date. If not then any other ideas would be more than welcome.

Thank you very much
jo

[ Parent ]

male guppy aggresion? or is the bullied one female? | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

create account | faq | search