# Honey dwarf guramy aggressive towards guppies ?



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Hi Guys

I have 30gl established tank for 1 year now with the following fish
5 rummy nose tetras
5-6 neons
5 rasboras
4 platies around 10 guppies and 1 honey dwarf guramy.

I have this guramy for a while now (6 months or so) I always noticed that I never had luck with guppies as I would constantly find them dead with torned fins and tales. I had female bettas and cherry bards before but I removed them all. But still was loosing my guppies. Today I noticed that my guramy grabbed one of the male guppies by the tale and after tried to attack female guppy while I was feeding my fish. I always thought they are not aggressive but could it be that he was the one who was attacking my guppies all along ?
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

In general, honey gouramis are not aggressive to other fish. But males can be aggressive to other males, especially in a small tank.

But just because most honey gouramis are peaceful does not mean they can't be bullies. Every fish is different and not all fish follow the usual pattern one might expect.

If you saw it bite a guppy and tear a fin, then maybe you have an unusually aggressive gourami who is a bully. He might well be the reason your guppies have suffered. 

But I also seem to recall the guppy problem has been going on for some time now. You have posted about this before. So you must ask yourself, when did your guppies begin dying and having torn fins ? Was it before or after you got this gourami ? 

If it was after.. I think you have identified your problem. Separate the guppies from the bullying gourami and all will be well.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Thank you for your advice Fishfur. I had issues with guppies from the begging of this tank (I never had it before in my old 10Gl tank). But in the beginning I had female bettas together with guppies, and after I had cherry barbs together with guppies. When I put guramy in the tank 6 months ago I still had cherry barbs in the tank and i thought they are the problem. i removed them since then but problem did not disappear entirely. I did removed the guramy and put it in the container for now. And yes you are right in the past year i posted 4-5 different threads regarding my guppy issue.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

sounds like the barbs were the problem and now its the gourami.

I can see the possiblility of the gourami being aggressive, I have some normal gourami and they can be quite aggressive.

I know lots of barbs can be fin nippers.

I think the root cause of MTS is aggressive fish, you suddenly need another tank for an aggresive fish.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

It can be very frustrating to have something like this happen and be unable to find out what is truly going on. I sympathize. With the length of time this has been happening, I have to wonder if there is an underlying problem in the tank that you cannot see. Some kind of organism, virus or a bacteria, something like that. 

I truly don't know what it could be. But there are some bacteria that can cause fins to look torn or damaged, while others can be internal and cause death, with few outward signs for you to see.

If you have not already tried this, if this was happening to me, I would first isolate the guppies in a hospital tank and see how they do by themselves. A very bare hospital tank, without plants, no substrate, nothing but filter, heater & fish. I'd keep it very clean. 

If they continue to have problems in the hospital tank, or more of them die, then I would have to consider it might be best to euthanize the guppies humanely, and then replace them with new stock. I hope this isn't what happens, it's very drastic, but if the fish are only going to suffer, it may be the kindest thing in the long term.

But if they do ok in the hospital tank, and no more fins are damaged, no more of them die, then it may be worth it to tear down their old tank. Sterilize everything. Toss old filter media, toss the substrate or boil it really well, and the same for any rocks or hard decor, heaters and such. If there are plants, I'd be tempted to toss them unless they are of great value or costly to replace.. if so, I'd move them to some other tank, and not put them in with guppies again.

Then I'd start over from scratch. Let it cycle and go on from there as you would with any new tank set up. Once it's fully cycled, put in the guppies and hopefully, whatever the problem was is gone and all is well. 

I do realize, this is lot of work and effort. It depends on how much you want or are able to do, and how much the guppies mean to you. Some of us get very attached to our fishy pets, but for some others, replacing fish is less of an emotional problem. Only you know the answers to those questions.

Unfortunately we don't always get answers to all our questions.. I wish you the best of luck.

I sincerely hope you find an answer for the problem.


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## Playing God (Dec 13, 2012)

Is it possible the guppies are doing this to themselves? (as unlikely as that seems) I've had male guppies kill eachother before as well....


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Playing God said:


> Is it possible the guppies are doing this to themselves? (as unlikely as that seems) I've had male guppies kill eachother before as well....


Well the Gurami is long time removed from the tank. And at the moment I have 4 males and 1 female guppy (this is the only ones who survived and I do not want add any more and I do know that I need 2 females per one male but this are the ones who so far for over a month getting along fine with each other)


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

with a few males and a female, one of two things will happen, either the males will stress out the female to death or you are going to have lots of fry soon


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

pyrrolin said:


> with a few males and a female, one of two things will happen, either the males will stress out the female to death or you are going to have lots of fry soon


Second one already happen. I have about 10-12 babies in the tank


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## nightowl1350 (Mar 19, 2006)

Just be glad it is only 10-12 babies. I started out with about 8 guppies and now have way too many to count.  I can't even catch any other fish in the tank without a few guppies in the net,


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## Playing God (Dec 13, 2012)

pyrrolin said:


> with a few males and a female, one of two things will happen, either the males will stress out the female to death or you are going to have lots of fry soon


Interesting. Back in highschool I added 2 males and 4 females to my sparsely planted tank and next day I saw the one male chasing the other on a regular basis. Within a day or two he was dead....... freak clash or have others seen this reaction between guppy males?


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