Agression in tank

S

stubborn

AC Members
Apr 23, 2009
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I have 20 gallon tank with lot of decor(hiding places) etc inside. Cycled it and levels are good.

started with 1 red platy(M), 1 sunset platy(F) and 1 sunset platy(F)

added two small Chinese Algae Eaters after a week. They seem happy except the rare occurrence where they run into the platys. Planning to give them away when they grow big and start bothering other fish.

Added 1 sunburst wag platy (F), 1 Silver Molly(M) and 1 Black Molly(F) yesterday

The silver Molly is constantly after the black molly. It chases it around. All is good when they get separated in the tank for a while. But when they see each other, silver again starts chasing the black molly

Should I just return one of the mollys? That will be sad coz I really like how they both look

I read that I should have more female mollies for every male. But then the silver molly already have 3 female platys in there. It just chases the black molly and I doubt if it is intelligent enough to detect that the black is one of its species given the fact that they are all of the same family and looks more or less similar.

Or do I just give them few more days to adjust?
 
Those CAEs are going to become more and more aggressive as they get older. They should not be in community tanks, especially 20g ones. I would try to rehome them ASAP.
 
Intelligence aside, the mollies should be housed with several females per one male of their own species. I would return both the mollies as you do not have enough room for them IMO, especially with the platies. They have a tendency to become more agressive when cramped.

As majortank said, the CAE will become more aggressive and territorial with age and will end up being too large for your tank size. There is no reason to be keeping them now as they will become harder to find homes for in the future when they are larger.

I would stick with the platy trio and you could add some smaller tetras (6-8) as well as some corys or ckuhli loaches (6 or so) for the bottom. It would make for an active, colorful tank IMO.
 
Ok I returned the two Chinese Algae Eaters to the fish store. The aggression of male molly seems to have come down and the female black molly is able to swim around more freely now. Now that I got rid of the CAEs, can I put two albino corys instead of them?
 
jpappy789 said:
You could probably get 5-6 corys.
Click to expand...

hey thanks for the suggestion. I got 3 albino corys to start with and they seem to be faring well. My only worry is that two of them (shorter bodied and litlle bit of pink color on the white) are very active and all over the tank. But the third cory mostly stays at the bottom of the tank as if it is meditating. It does move around once in a while and eat food also, but is not active as other corys. It is also more white in color and has a bigger body than the other two. I was about to return it to LFS, but I noticed that in all cory tanks I saw at different stores, some corys are doing the exact same thing (sitting calmly at bottom) whereas the others are darting across and up and down. No idea why such difference in behavior. But I assume mine is ok.

Another sad news is that I got a fancy male guppy and in one night it was attacked and the fin torn. Poor thing is now scared of all other fishes in there. I couldn't bear subjecting it to such pain, so returned to LFS. Also gave up the idea of ever having Guppies coz I really don't know which fish is respoonsible for the attack. All I have is platys, mollies and corys who get along pretty well and are community fish and not fin nippers(from what I've read). Anyways disappointed:-(
 
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