Agressive Platy Problems (Long)

[GobyGuy5]

Of all the fish to be agressive, it just had to be on of my community platies . Here's what has happened. I fishy cycled my tank with platies, and my 'tank plan' called for three platies when I was done. I bought my three platies at the LFS, and one died a couple days later. The two that were left were male and female, the male was a total pig, and the female often ate less. It all started one day when during feeding time, the male chased the female away from the food during feeding time, this gradually escalated into him chasing her full time and never giving her a monments rest. Since platies are supposed to be peaceful, I traded the male in at the local fish store, (buying a replacement for the one that had died at the same time) and for months the current combination of 1 male and 2 female platies has been going great, until It happened all over again, the male chasing one of females around constantly, never giving her a moments rest. I'm stumped as to why this keeps on happening, as this time it wasn't a food contest. Also the male leaves the other female alone, he even swims around with her! I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that the female he leaves alone is 'mature' and has been having offspring, while the other female has yet to get pregnant. I'm just not sure however and figured I'd leave the cause of this up to you guys........

I've tried to stop the behaivor, by first, Isolating the victim, in the tank for three weeks, (so the male would get used to her being around), but a quarter of an hour after I let her lose, the male was chasing her around again. So now I'm trying isolating the aggresive male while the female swims around the tank, in hopes the male will learn to stop his behaivor!

I'm not sure how to deal with this, what do you guys think I should do? Should I do something different? It's happened twice, so I'm reluctant to replace the male, but should? For your information the female he was chasing around and constantly harrassing was VERY stressed, and was getting her fins ripped up (from running) so this isn't exactly harmless

All help and advice is appreciated thank you !

 

[delmore]

Try adding another female or two to disperse the agression.

 

[Lukara]

I had similar experiences with my platies. I think the key is to have plenty of swimming room, hiding spaces and a minimum of 3 females to 1 male. I haven't ever isolated any of the females or the male and I don't really think this is necessary. I've had my male chase after one of the females persistently for weeks at a time only to one day start chasing the other female and leave the first one alone. Good luck.