# Can male guppy atack , stress, damage another male guppy ?



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Hi Guys

I'm keep having issues in my new tank for 6 months now since I started it. I had more issues in this thank than in my old tank in 2 years. My new issue is that I started to discover newly added male guppies stressed with ripped tales and most of them dieing from stress (being scared) few days after. Since I started this tank I already had parasites, Ick, female guppies dieing rapidly because being scared nipped by female bettas. Now i removed female bettas and my female guppies are fine and giving birth as I can find a few baby guppies in the tank. What is strange that my males that have been in the tank for long time doing good (most of them, I lost one orange color recently, who has been in my tank for a while). The new males who are stressed and dieing are all orange / red color, some plane orange, some with white and some cobra style. 2 days after putting them in my tank I can see their tales (but not all of them) ether ripped or spitted. My old male guppies mostly black (black Russians) and white cobras (I do have one orange and one pink and black / yellow cobra) and they mostly bigger than the new ones. I have in my tank mostly guppies (about 30, 10 males and 20 females or so, which should be a good balance to avoid any fighting) a few neons, rummy nose tetras and cherry barbs (also some coreys and pleco). The same fish I had before in smaller numbers in my old smaller tank and never had issues with it. The only other difference is that in this tank I have both male and female cherry barbs, where in old one I had only males. Also I discovered a couple of neons sometime ago with ripped tales as well but compare with guppies the number is much smaller and my neons look happy in my tank. I like guppies and from my previous experience it was the easiest and hardiest fish to keep around but lately I noticed that it is very hard to keep them around and specialty with other fish. So I'm trying to figure out where the aggression is coming from other male guppies or cherry barbs (because their males trying to protect their females) ? Any help is appreciated.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

OK. I found the issue. It is one of my cherry barbs attacking only red / orange male guppies. This one has been with me over the year and now the largest barb in the tank. The rest of them is 3-4 months old and not that big and aggressive. I don't understand why he started to attack the other fish. He was always in the tank with other fish and was never so aggressive. The only difference in this tank, that tank is bigger and has more fish and I also added the female cherry barbs. Any help is appreciated.


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