Couple of questions

Hello again. Sorry I havent been on for a while, but I hope you can answer a couple of questions for me.

1. I have 5 male guppies and thery have all been getting on ok, but lkately one or two of them seem to be having problems. They are chasing their 'brothers' all over the tank, and one male is getting really picked on.

Is this normal behaviour? Is there any way to stop it? I will take some back to the shop if its the only way to stop it because I dont like to see this fish getting picked on badly.

2. How do you all clean the inside of the gravel vac tubing. I have flushed it through with water a few times in the past, but it is quite gunky now so I would like some foolproof method is there is one.

Thanks a lot, and its nice to be back

Hiya Guppy. Nice to see you again.

Guppy wrote:1. I have 5 male guppies and thery have all been getting on ok, but lkately one or two of them seem to be having problems. They are chasing their 'brothers' all over the tank, and one male is getting really picked on.

It's probably an hormonal thing, Guppy. I have three male guppies and one of them gets picked on so there's likely to be some sort of hierarchical pecking order also.

2. How do you all clean the inside of the gravel vac tubing. I have flushed it through with water a few times in the past, but it is quite gunky now so I would like some foolproof method is there is one.

I asked this question not so long ago too! Every so often, I flush the tubing through with hot water and I also have a nifty double ended wire brush on a flexible wire that I feed through the tube to remove the gunk.

Can you put the 4 males (minus the one being bullied) in a bucket for a couple of hours with a spare filter? Re introducing them one by one just might change the pecking order a bit (Just keep refreshing the water every 20 mins if you don't have spares)
I have just done something similar in my mbuna fry tank & the male who was weedy is now a different colour & has claimed the biggest cave as HIS.
Of course it could shift the problem to another fish but it wont hurt to try

Thanks for all the advice. I went out and got a small spare tank and put the baddies in that for a couple of days, giving the bullied one a bit of peace. It was great to see him swim around the tank again instead of hiding all the time.

I then put the others back one by one and it all just kicked off again.

The spare tank is only 15litres. Would it be ok to keep a couple of the more narky ones in there permanently?

How about keeping the bullied one in there? Maybe with a few shrimp?

Oh that's a shame, but never mind, you tried. Indi's suggestion is the best one i'd say