# Agressive Male Swordie



## Fairy (Jul 20, 2010)

Ok so in June i bought 2 Female swordies, and a Green Male. He was fine the first few months and didn't seem to bother with anything in the tank. Now he's had a total change in attitude. 

I did have 8 Guppies in with them, but he started picking them off one by one. One of His females died which left him with one. He then took out my Fave female guppy, so I bought another 2 females for him and gave my guppies to my aunt who is an Avid guppy breeder. Thinking this might help calm him down. But it hasn't all the girls do now is hide from him and if they do venture out he chases them like his life depended on it. 

What can I do to stop him from being aggressive? He has a total of 4 females to go at and yet it looks like he's just wanting to attack them now rather than breed. I have him separated at the moment but he looks depressed now, when he was on the rampage he looked happy as larry.


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## BV77 (Jan 22, 2005)

try anger management councelling. lol


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## BV77 (Jan 22, 2005)

seriously, he's ready to breed and they aren't


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## narizina (Mar 17, 2010)

That's pretty much what it is, I think.

I had a male guppy once that was ready for the big showdown like every day with every female in the tank -even ones that weren't his own species. And the reality that he clearly couldn't realize was that most of the females in my tank were already pregnant and the others were either too young (and therefore not ready) or not a fish he could mate with. This meant little to him and he would pick on every fish in the tank - even ones four times his size (talk about ballsy).

Now, as for what you can do... honestly, it sounds like you've done what you can, outside of switching out the females or sequestering the male. Isolation will probably cause him some minor stress and switching out the females will probably cause you some minor stress. I think that's your trade-off.


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## MetalHead (Aug 18, 2010)

Drop in a larger sized male in there and add 2 more females. that should sort the aggression out


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## Fairy (Jul 20, 2010)

Well it looks like the 2 new females are about to drop any day soon. but seeing as my "baby" Tank is pretty much empty at the moment I might just drop him into there till my Young male ( born on the 1st of Aug) gets a little ballsier and just keep the babies in a breeder tank till then. What do you guys think? Or should I drop him into my Molly tank so he doesn't feel lonely?


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

Ya, I know what you mean by a mean swordtail...
In my 10 gallon, the first 2 fish I put in there were a male and a female koi swordtails. After a week or two, after the cycle which the swordtails were not in at the time, the male suddenly died. A few weeks after that, the female let out her babies that she had been holding in and became a real b**ch She was attacking the two platys that I had with her and the female betta and she was getting slimmer(turning into a MALE!!!) so I moved him into my 37 gallon with 2 fig 8 puffers and 1 sailfin molly, which only made matters worse for him. He picked on the puffers until finally the puffers bit his whole dorsal fin OFF!!! He's still in the tank with no dorsal fin because I'm trying to catch him and put him in a small tank to calm him down and heal his dorsal fin
I'd drop the baby into the 15 gallon with assorted shrimp, assuming you have floating plants to cover him, my baby platy in my 10 gallon has survived in there for I'd say 3 to 4 months and is doing great He'll be fine, just if you don't have any for that tank, buy some floating anachris


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## Fairy (Jul 20, 2010)

Lol i would drop him in to the shrimp tank, but last time I did that XD He ate them all So i would prefer not to do that if at all possible


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

Well, assuming he's not too big to eat the shrimp Also, I finally caught the swordtail! He was dead


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## Fairy (Jul 20, 2010)

D: oh noes about your swordie, but yea he likes to eat shrimps quite readily lol. thats why i think putting with my mollies


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## narizina (Mar 17, 2010)

How do the mollies compare in size to him?


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

If you're keeping the swordtail with the mollies, I deffinitely recommend buying java moss. This is a great hiding place from adult fish for any baby fish, especially swordtails and platys, that's where mine hide and they're doing great


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