nasty peacock, help?

[D. Hedington]

i have a 50gal tank, 200or so litres, it houses 9 female peacocks, all are peacfull except one, she is terrible, tears all the others up, and gives my little pleco a bit of trouble too.
got any idears why?
or atleast a way to curb the agression

 

[odinthejd]

You could bring to a pet store or you could mix up everything in the tank such as the decor to mess up the territory if thats what is causing this dispute.

 

[D. Hedington]

tried changing decore, but this dosent bother her,
and i dont think i could part with her

 

[Stargazer53]

Could you possibly add more hiding places, decorations, and/or plants? Are all the females similar in size? If the aggressive female is alpha because of her size, perhaps if the others were to catch up in size with her the aggression may simmer down?

 

[D. Hedington]

their all close to the same size 5 1/2''
they have plenty of hiding places, but theres nowhere they can go where she cant get them

 

[hollyfish2000]

I only have experience with male peacocks but if one guy didn't play nice with others I found there wasn't much I could do. Yes, rearrange the "furniture" in the tank is one idea. You could try adding more fish to see if that diffuses the aggression but you have a small tank for peacocks. (I wouldn't do them in anything smaller than 55 and that's a minimum.) You could try giving the bully-fish a "time out" in a QT/hospital tank for a week or so and then put her back and see if she's better. I never actually tried that, but it's a thought. Instead, I usually just sent the bully back to the LFS as harmony was more important to me than a single fish. (Peacocks under stress like this are heading toward bloat or other stress-induced health issues IME.)

Good luck!

 

[AfroCichlid]

Stupid question; but is the fish in question the most colorful? If not my advice would be to replace her with a less aggressive female.

 

[D. Hedington]

I've put her with my veil finned oscars, and it seems to be working out,
order has been somewhat restored for now.
cheers for the idears

 

[mou86afa]

i had the same problem but with Oscars i try a lot of ways to make the strong Oscar be calm and peaceful but i failed to make him Persuade so got my last move by changing about 50% or more of the water and change the decors places of the aquarium ..
and put the weak Oscars 1st then after a day i put the strong Oscar
they look pretty calm after that

 

[Dr.Dovii]

And the fun part will be if she reverts to form and shreds the fins on your oscars.