Guppies! New fish owner questions...

[Haberdashery]

I am very excited. I didn't know there was a Fishnet. Hoorah!

Anyway, we are the proud new owners of a 30L tank containing, so far, 8 guppies. We did a fishless cycle which took ages, had our water pronounced perfect by the fish shop people and introduced four guppies. Left it a week and introduced four more. This is to satisfy DD's craving for a pet as DH and I are v allergic to furry things. She's five so I am feeling quite maternal about the fish whereas she is quite unconcerned apart from talking to them interminably. I worry about them!

My problem is that some of the guppies seem quite aggressive. They're bothering the other ones a bit. I don't know if I'm anthropomorphising or if it's just normal or if I am right to be concerned but it seems to me that it's very much a back seat of the car and too many siblings situation. One guppy goes nip nip nip bother bother bother and then the other will respond in kind. There's one particularly bossy one which we've christened Tyson who seems to just basically want to bully all the others. When there were four, we noticed that it was just two guppies who were participating in the bothering, but now that there are eight, the two who were just bothering each other are now bothering all six of the others and some of the others are bothering back in turn.

What can I do to help them all get on? They are all male and I understand that it is better to keep them in mixed groups and let them breed, but what on earth would we do with the babies? We don't have space for more tanks and I have read that guppies can have tens of babies at a time. They are from tanks where they have previously been kept in all male groups in the fish shop.

I have noticed that if the tank lights are on, then the aggressive behaviour is much worse. But we have live plants in there so is it bad not to let those get enough light? How long should we leave the tank lights on during the day? I think the fish enjoy the live plants as I have seen them eating them. They also nip at the algae that has grown in the tank.

Also, I had heard that guppies enjoy fresh veg so I have tried them with some blanched lettuce and peas but they just ignore this in favour of the flake food. Will they start trying it if I persevere? Or is this just silly and I should let them get on with the ready meals?

Apologies for all the questions. I am a very new fish owner but keen to do my best for the fish and hopefully give them a reasonably happy life.

Off to bed now but would be so grateful for any suggestions or help!

Hello :)

Right, I will try to answer all of your questions and I have a few of my own too-

How long was the tank set up before adding fish?
What are the latest water test results?
What's your cleaning regime like?

That's the basics covered. You may be slightly anthropomorphising but you could be onto something with the siblings/back seat analogy 8 guppies is a lot for a 30 litre tank. Normally an all-male shoal is OK but they do need a bit of space. They will never all 'get on', shoals are constantly scrapping a bit to maintain the pecking order. If one fish is being picked on by all the others then it's a sign that the fish is sick. If one fish is picking on all the others it's a sign that it's a bit of a bastard. Aggression is a lot more common in overcrowded tanks.

Live plants do need light, otherwise they will die off and cause an ammonia spike. If it's particularly bright then the fish might get skittish. Try adding some floating plants to diffuse the light a bit and create some shady areas.

In the wild a guppy's diet would be mainly made up of insect larva with some plant matter. You could try replicating this by giving them some live or frozen food once a week, then some veg and use the flake food as the fishes staple food.

Finally, some bad news (sorry!)- 30 litres isn't really big enough for 8 guppies. I wouldn't recommend any fish be kept in a tank of less than 45 litres. 8 guppies would be OK in a tank maybe double the size of yours. Small tanks are often marketed at beginners but they are actually very hard to maintain as the water quality can change very quickly.

Hope that helps a bit.

Hi EauRouge and thank you so much for responding.

I am a bit sad to hear that 30L is too small for the fish - we were initially told that we could have 12 guppies in a tank of that size but I decided on 8 because it seemed too small for 12. It sounds like we may have to look at a larger tank for them. Feel dreadful as I really do want the fish to be as happy as possible. They are pretty small fish so I thought having two-thirds of the amount recommended by the fish shop might be OK to ensure they all had more than enough space.

I will try some frozen or live food, and add more plants to provide shade. DD insisted on a rather large artificial plant but I think perhaps we ought to replace it with a real one. The fish shop chaps recommended a flake food that is made, I think, of algae and shrimp (can't go and look now as fish and DD asleep). Does that sound like a reasonable thing to be feeding them?

Currently, they have in the tank:

• a shell thing which is large enough for them to enter and swim out the other side (several tunnels/chambers, so space for more than one fish to hide from the others a bit)
• a large green frondy plant which covers a fair bit of the water surface (about a third?) with fronds (this is the one they like eating, think called Elodea or something, judging by google images of aquatic plants)
• several clumps of low but broad-leaved pink/olive plants which provide some shade and something to hide behind/under
• two artificial plants, one frondy and one with long tendrils, which they swim in and out of a lot, so presume they like them

I can definitely see that the light is a bit of a stress factor as they do all seem to congregate in the darkest corner of the tank quite often.

How long do you think the tank lights should be on per day for the plants to thrive? At the moment, the plants are all actually growing a lot so they are clearly healthy right now. The tank is in a south-facing and reasonably bright room but not in direct sunlight as I don't want to cook the guppies! I switch the lights on in the morning every day, but if I see the guppies getting a bit stressed/fighty (am checking on them a lot as work from home and office right next door) then I switch the lights off for an hour or so and the improvement in their behaviour is really extraordinary. With the lights off, they all swim round happily, occasionally nosing at each other gently. With the lights on, they all dash about like nutters and then go and bully each other.

I am sure that it is not only one fish being picked on (we have a mix of several slightly different types, but all similar colours as the fish shop man said that would be better) but there is one fish who is, sadly, a bit of a bastard. I do think his behaviour is encouraging the others to be fightier than they might be without him.

To answer your questions:

How long was the tank set up before adding fish?

About five weeks.

What are the latest water test results?

Erm, I don't know. I've been letting the fish shop do the testing. Is that bad? They do it free and I was a bit scared (plus the kit was a tenner and I thought if they did it free then I could spend that on plants etc for the tank). But when we added the first four guppies they told me the results were 'perfect' and the second time 'really good'. So I think the tank is reasonably clean and the environment not unpleasant. The fish shop chaps seem very helpful and knowledgable (but then anyone know lots compared to a beginner like me).

What's your cleaning regime like?

We have been doing a 10% water change weekly and washing the filter in the water we take out.

Do you think the answer might just be a larger tank and/or more shade? I feel sad for the fish if I am overcrowding them. I did think the fish shop might recommend more fish than wise so went for less but that is still too many it seems. Oh dear. I feel v responsible for the poor little things.

The way you set up the tank sounds fine (you did add a source of ammonia, right?) and the cleaning regime sounds good- you could do a larger water change, up to around 25-30% which might help.

There's nothing wrong ith getting the shop to test the water; the only potential problem is that they don't tell you the results, they may hust say 'fibne' or 'OK' which doesn't really tell you anything. Water quality is so important in fishkeeping and it's not that complicated- I think a lot of shops just imagine that all newbies are uninterested and/or too simple and so don't bother explaining it.

The light needs to be on around 8-10 hours per day. Some floating plants might help, try looking on ebay for riccia or salvinia natans. They spread quickly so people are always selling spare dead cheap.

I do think a larger tank might help the situation. It's sad that the shop told you that you could keep 12 guppies, especially after such a great start with the fishless cycling. Something around 45+ litres would be perfect.

Thanks so much, this is all really helpful. A lot of stuff I have read has me scratching my head as they seem to assume you know a lot already.

I added the friendly bacteria stuff and conditioned the water with a chlorine remover thingy before filling up the tank (have done the same for all water changes in the correct proportions). I also added a pinch of food every so often on the advice of the Fish Men - would this have broken down to ammonia? I think so from googling. A week or two after setting up, all the water went crazily cloudy and I panicked a bit but think this may have been bacterial bloom from googling. After that, algae and the plants started to grow like crazy and the water quality started improving according to the Fish Shop Men.

Basically, I bought most of the plants and gravel and decorations all in one go, set it up and ran it until the water was OK (took it in weekly after a couple of weeks cycling) - the fish shop seems reasonably reputable. They would not sell me fish without performing a water test which I felt was a good sign from my googling. They also did give me feedback on the water quality - eg 'nowhere near' gradually moving down to 'perfect'. But I'm a bit concerned that they advised me to feed an algae-based food if the fish naturally live on insect larvae.

Having said that, the tank had a fair bit of algae when I introduced the fish and they have eaten it all. So perhaps they do like it? It was green stuff and brown stuff. Ahem. Technical terms there, you know.

I'm definitely getting some live food. It seems like it would give the fish something interesting to do, as well as feeding them. And many thanks for the floating plant recommendations. I can see that the fish prefer both darkness and live plants so it seems a win win kind of thing to buy.

I'll also look at a larger tank. What size would you recommend at a minimum? 60L for 8 guppies?

Also, could you recommend an easy to use test kit? I presume any kit will tell me what to look for? Cheap would be good! But obviously a decent reliable kit would be better. I'm not against learning about it all, at all, but the Fish Men just said 'we will test it for free' so I kind of thought 'oh, all right then'. How often should I be testing?

So sorry for all the questions. You are v v helpful and I am hugely grateful. Thank you!

if you are giving live food then go for the frozen blocks rather than the little bags of live worms -I've had some real issues with disease from these bags

what wattage is the tube in your light? if it's in a bright room then you can afford to drop the brightness of the bulb

-and sometimes if you do have a bully in your tank, the best thing for the greater good is to get rid of it

Yes, there is a disease risk from live food, albeit a small one. If you empty out the water into a net and rinse the live food under the tap then that reduces the risk. I've never had any problems that way. Frozen stuff is fine, just remember to defrost it first, fish don't like ice lollies

The way you cycled your tank is fine, the fish men told you right. And I do know what you mean by green and brown algae!

I would test the water once a week so you can just monitor things and head off any potential problems. Dip stick test kits are easier to use but less accurate and more expensive in the long run. Liquid test kits are a bit fiddlier but not complicated. API or Hagen are fairly reliable. You need to be able to test for ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte and pH. You can get a kit that does all that for about £20 on ebay.

For 8 guppies I would be looking at 60 litres, yes. That'll give them a bit more space to get away from each other.

Thanks so much, both of you. The fish shop has frozen food so I will go and buy some. Any recommendations for particular things that guppies would enjoy? I think I will also try some rinsed live food, too. If it kills off the bully, then we can just say goodbye to Tyson and carry on without him. I think he is v badly behaved and if I was his mother I would be having words. Will obv be a bit sad if it kills off the nice little yellowish pair who are just the calmest fish in the world (if I'd known the two flame-tailed ones would be such bastards I wouldn't have let DD choose them - Tyson started it, but Tyson Jr is totally carrying it on). And what live food would be best for guppies? I know I've seen daphnia and some kinds of worms and other things too. Er, things. Little whizzy things. What's the best sort for a guppy?

If I get live food in those little bags, how much do I give them at one go? And is there a sensible way to store the rest? Obviously it is only a small tank with only a few fish and I don't think overfeeding would do them any favours. But if I add too much, I can hardly get it out again, or can I?

The light is 15W and it looks crazily bright when I turn it on. I keep thinking, since you said about the shade, EauRouge, that of course I would not like to sit in bright sunlight either all day long. I can't think why I didn't think of that before! The room is bright but the tank is never in direct sunlight because I thought that would probably be a bad thing.

Just got some Salvinia Natans on eBay. Should I rinse that, too?

Will now start looking for cheap 60L tank. And a test kit.

Thank you so much. It's great to get some expert advice from people who are not trying to sell me something!

Also, you know, getting rid of the bully. Could we do that? What on earth would we do with him? I don't suppose the shop would want him back... Anyone want a really grumpy bad-mannered guppy?

They would love daphnia or bloodworm. You can store it in a jamjar but it won't last more than a day or so. They will probably eat half a bag at feeding time, depending on how much is in there. Better to give them a little at a time and see how they get on.

Yes, give the plants a good rinse too.

I don't see why the shop wouldn't take Tyson back if you explain what's going on. Unless they have been trying to get rid of him for some time

you can always send him to the big fish tank in the sky......

I used to keep chiclids and they can be really nasty -sent a couple of nice coloured ones off to a breeder but I'm sorry to say 2 off them were not wanted

I know it sounds cruel but so is letting him carry on beating up the other 7 fish

I can't kill him! I know he's horrible but it just seems so awful. I might ask if we can swap him for another of the same type. But you are right that the other seven fish are quite nice and it's horrible that he's such a bastard to them. It did occur to me that if only we had another tank a week in isolation might give him something to think about. Honestly, it's ridiculous how cross I am with an inch-long fish.

I will rinse the plants in some tank water when I do a water change and add them then.

I'll get some live food and frozen food and let you know how we get on!

Many many thanks!

I didn't want to invest too much money in this because I thought maybe DD would get bored and I'd be stuck with the whole thing. But actually I am quite enjoying it despite sodding Tyson, so perhaps a larger tank would be a good thing for me, too. Wish I'd taken Tyson back when we got the second batch of four guppies. If I'd found fishnet by then I'd definitely have rehomed him, or unhomed him, little bastard.

If I were to buy some live food and they didn't eat much at one go, could I freeze the rest and defrost it later to feed as dead food? Or is that nuts? The bags are about four or five inches long and a couple of inches wide. They don't seem to have a lot of things in them but then I don't know what a guppy would consider lots of things...

Crikey, no, I would only euthanise a fish that was on its way out anyway. Also they are covered by the animal welfare act.

If things don't improve when you get the bigger tank then would it be an option to keep him in the 30 litre?

Yes, you can freeze live food, just put it in some clean water.

Glad you're enjoying it anyway, your fish are lucky that you are willing to take such good care of them.

Actually, crossing my fingers here and touching wood, but things seem to be settling down a bit....

They had quite a quiet day yesterday and since it was brightish in the room anyway, I left the tank light off quite a lot. Tyson seems a bit calmer and is not being quite such a little sod today, even with the tank light on. Hope things are settling down. Perhaps now he has comprehensively demonstrated that he is Top Fish (or a little thug), he may not feel the need to go on and on about it so much?

I will still keep looking for a larger tank that we can afford as it does seem sensible to give them some more room. And the bit DD enjoyed most was decorating the tank so she would enjoy getting more plants and things to put in it.