sewelld Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 Hi We have what I know are 2 male fantail guppies, and what I think is 1 male swordtail guppy. I have since introduced 2 females. The fantails don't seem very interested, but the swordtail is constantly chasing them around, and it looks like he is attempting to nip the underside of her tail, just behind the belly. Is this normal behaviour for a male around a female? If it is then fine, but if its bullying then he'll need a new home.... Thanks Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 Hiya Dave. This seems like fairly normal behaviour as long as he's not being overly super aggressive. My male guppies usually alternate between a little bit of anal fin nipping, displaying, and chasing. But they never appear to be deliberately trying to hurt the females. The best ratio to have with guppies is about 2-3 females per one male. This allows the females to take turns have a break from all the attention. You can get away with less females, but it really depends on the males and your tank setup. If the males are more laid back (like your other 2 seem to be) then the female(s) will be just fine...especially if there are plants and objects to break the line of sight in the tank and give the females some time to explore and do their thing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 I have three females... and two males. One female gets all the attention and the other two are mostly ignored! Do platys need the same ratio? I've got a male and female platy in my quarantine tank , they give each other short chases but otherwise don't seem to be harassing each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewelld Posted July 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 Hiya Dave. This seems like fairly normal behaviour as long as he's not being overly super aggressive. My male guppies usually alternate between a little bit of anal fin nipping, displaying, and chasing. But they never appear to be deliberately trying to hurt the females. The best ratio to have with guppies is about 2-3 females per one male. This allows the females to take turns have a break from all the attention. You can get away with less females, but it really depends on the males and your tank setup. If the males are more laid back (like your other 2 seem to be) then the female(s) will be just fine...especially if there are plants and objects to break the line of sight in the tank and give the females some time to explore and do their thing Ta, yep, plenty of plants and a couple of objects, so they do get the chance of somewhere to hide. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 depends on the fish, some males are terrible at harrasing the girls, some go after just one mercilisly, and some are laid back and hardly bother them. If the girls are looking stressed and hassled add some more or take out the trouble maker. Yes guppies can change sex, several people here have first hand experience of it. Closest i've seen was an almost adult male with a gonopodium change to female shape, lose colour and his gonopodium changed to female shape, didn't get to see if s/he could have babies though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewelld Posted July 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 We did seperate him for a bit, into a container floating on the top of the tank, but it was clear, and he was quite frantic to get back into the main tank, If he was a jumper, I reckon he'd done it (had tetras which did this!) Guess we'll just have to keep our eye on him. How can you tell if they'll mate? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 they mate every chance they get watch the male closely when he's chasing a girl, you'll see that everytime he gets close he swings his gonopodium out sideways and tried to jab it in there, occasionally he'll succeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewelld Posted July 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 ok, ta. I have noticed that he does like to 'show off', goes sideways, bends himself into a curve and fans his tail and top fin. Only saw him doing this once the girls were in the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 Best to have lots more females than males. Most male livebearers will chase anything that moves - male or female :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 they get especially confused by snakesking or wild type boys that have the black dot on their side, seem to think they are gravid spots on girls lol Our preschool fish were all little wild x endler male guppies, until we had two beautiful big show males donated, now the original ones are convinced these big ones must be girls, very amusing watching them displaying for all their worth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 just a Q about Guppy size About 6 weeks ago we bought a young snakeskin male and a young female golden guppy. I thought all the golden females in the tank were quite large compared to the tuxedo girl I had at home. Since then the golden female has grown so big and is now the biggest in the tank. But the snakeskin male is still small and is the smallest in the tank. My youngest 8 week old tuxedo female is almost as big as him. I know the males are not as big but he is 1/2 - 3/4 the size of my other male. (tuxedo) Are there size differences related to their colourings/markings? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 the temperature, feeding, water changes etc while they grow helps to determine adult size, but it is largely genetic too. The wild type guppies are generally alot smaller than show guppy strains, and different fixed strains of guppies will be different sizes. My little wild/endler gups are 2-2 1/2cm for males, but the females are double that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 Personally I do not like to follow the 2-3 females per male rule because you'll be getting more fry then you can deal with! My 2 females are living quite happily with 5 males and the do not get overly harassed. Occasionally a couple of my males will have a go at trying to court them but they will give up after a while and allow my females to explore, forage, relax the rest of the time. I have enough room to easily turn over the fry from 2-3 females while I would be completely over run by the fry from 10-15, and my entire system would fall apart! Generally what I do is move my female out during/right after she has given birth and place her with the male that I would like her to mate with for the next 1-1.5 weeks. Once I'm convinced she is impregnated I move both parents back to the community tank and wait until she gives birth again. When I'm lazy I just leave the female in the community tank and just let her get pregnant by whatever male. Since I only keep the nicest looking males (all of which I would be happy to become her mate), its always exciting to see what new looks of guppies I'll end up with! Since females can store sperm anyways, I am never sure what I'll get! Currently I am using one female always with the same male because I think their fry will be very interesting looking, and the other female is my wild card Although this is not a perfect system if I was very serious about breeding strains professionally, it doesn't allow me to enjoy it as a hobby with minimum setup and meticulousness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewelld Posted July 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 How good are the fry of avoiding hungry mouths? I think one of ours gave birth, after seeing about 3 fry hiding amongst the plants. How many do they normally give birth too at anyone time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 they start with smaller amounts of fry and the brood (right word??) gets bigger as the female gets older. I had one guppy give birth to over 50 fry but I've heard numbers of over 100! My first lot of fry was about 8-10... of which 2 did not get eaten. The next two lots of fry I am unsure of numbers as I thinks some got eaten before the morning.. anyway... 2 survived from the 2nd lot and none from the third lot. I have a female betta in the tank and she also helps with population control. I keep 3 females and 2 males , and I'm happy with that ratio. Any more females and I think I would get too big a population explosion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 i keep 6 males and 2 females in a well planted 100L, with a couple of female bettas and a furcatus rainbow. When the girls have babies most of them seem to survive. I had two big girls dropping 30+ each time, i'd just net them out when it got too crowded. Now i have two younger girls in there who are related to the boys, when they drop i leave the babies a couple of weeks until they are sexable, then pop them into a girl tank and boy tank, and the best boys go back in, the rest get sold/given away. They're endler/wild guppy crosses and i'm trying to breed them back to being more endler-like, i figure this is the best way to do it without loosing too much of their variability. I just pick the young boys that look most like i want them to in colouring, and swap them with the older males that aren't as nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 How good are the fry of avoiding hungry mouths? I think one of ours gave birth, after seeing about 3 fry hiding amongst the plants. How many do they normally give birth too at anyone time? Some are better then others I think. I've never actually seen any of the adults eat the fry so I am unsure. The first batch I got only had 6 fry. But the next ones started having more like 20 and 30. I got one of those floating fry chambers at first because I didn't have a separate tank. I would siphon up or use a small net to catch all the babies I could see and place them in the chamber. You have to have a good eye to get them all! Even when I thought I did, I would find some more behind the java moss at the back of the tank after a week! So I am not sure whether those were ones that were born late or ones I missed...or if there would be even more had the adults not gotten to any. But they seemed to do a good job staying out of sight. I also tried moving the female into the chamber to give birth (as there is a section that you can put in to separate mama from fry but she stopped with labour and so I had to but her back into the main tank after a couple days. I have noticed that the fry do a lot better and grow faster when you separate them out so that you can make sure they get enough food. They don't really seem to like the ground up fish food so I have to start their first couple weeks on brine shrimp. This way none of the fry die on me. i keep 6 males and 2 females in a well planted 100L, with a couple of female bettas and a furcatus rainbow. When the girls have babies most of them seem to survive. I had two big girls dropping 30+ each time, i'd just net them out when it got too crowded. Now i have two younger girls in there who are related to the boys, when they drop i leave the babies a couple of weeks until they are sexable, then pop them into a girl tank and boy tank, and the best boys go back in, the rest get sold/given away. They're endler/wild guppy crosses and i'm trying to breed them back to being more endler-like, i figure this is the best way to do it without loosing too much of their variability. I just pick the young boys that look most like i want them to in colouring, and swap them with the older males that aren't as nice. I now too have upgraded and have a separate bare-bottom 40ltr tank just for the fry. There is a slot down the middle which I can slid a divider in. On one side I float the little chamber holding the tiny fry, and as soon as I can sex them I put the females on the same side with the chamber, and the males on the other side. As they grow, males (and maybe females) I like go back into the community tank with the adults and I sell/give away the rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 the mothers are the worst sometimes, they hunt them down and gobble them where as the boys only seem to try and grab them if they happen to pass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 twinkles wrote: Yes guppies can change sex, I didn't know that they did. Swordtails do don't they? Caper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewelld Posted July 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2009 Just to update. The male swordtail has now settled down with the girls, and doesn't pester as much, Everyone in the Guppy kingdom seems happy and well, and we have 3 littlies swmming around and doing well... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted July 30, 2009 Report Share Posted July 30, 2009 My Platies were at a M:F ratio of 1:2. The male kept harrassing the one female so he got kicked out, just had my first Platy drop yesterday. 5 caught so far but the Kribs were having a feast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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