hungry or territory

[Alexbet813]

i got back from dinner and my xray tetras are all missing the white tip of there dorsal fins! after watching my neon blue dwarf gourami is the perpitrator! I dont believe im overstocked with three xrays three male guppies, one dwarf gourami and one pleco but i could be wrong the tank is planted so there are places to hide, any ideas? ive had them all for about a week and this is the first sign of trouble.

[travie]

Most likely a dwarf gourami that is a little agressive and territorial.

[Ellen4God]

What size tank do you have them in?

[Alexbet813]

its a 10g long

[Alexbet813]

he took out one of my gupies, i woke up this morning and he has barely any of his right fin left:scry: he is still alive but i having a hard time swimming and spends most his time laying on the bottom.

[siymdapolio]

Most likely a dwarf gourami that is a little agressive and territorial.
I would agree a 10 gal and not enough places to hide gouramis are shy and very agressive too!
Alex i am very sorry to hear about that. That must be tough :(

[~Erik3.8.07~]

sorry to hear about your tetra, gouramis (especially male) tend to like to claim there own spots in a tank that they can just chill at, since your tank is so small your dwarf probably claimed just about the entire thing. A bigger tank would definetly help a lot

[jphonger]

the dwarf gouramis can be really territorial... I have two males in a 10g. at first they battled a bit, but never bothered their 6 danio roomates. If you give the dwarf good places to hide out and maybe get some floating plants and or a cave, it might help things. I have hornwort in my tank and it really helps with the aggression giving everyone the opportunity to hide in it. keep a close eye on things, you may have to remove the gourami :( I got lucky and nothing too major happened before everyone sorted out their differences and decided to get along. I have a theory, albeit totally unproven... if the tank doesn't have enough action (hiding places, plants, etc) and if it is over or understocked, the fish won't be as happy and will get grumpy and bother each other... I also check my water parameters if the fish start getting aggressive... just like us humans, I think fish might be more likely to fight if they are stressed.
hope everything works out well for you!

[Wild Turkey]

Forget the gouramis, plecos can grow up to 2 feet. and yes ur ten gal is way over stocked. Just to give a ballpark ive got two ten gallon tanks in the works right now and so far the plan is 7 bleeding heart tetras, 2 corys, a few snails. and the other tank will be 6 glowlight danios, 6 cardinal tetras, possibly a few shrimp. Ten gallons is not alot of water, good luck to you but defenitly find a new place for the pleco, get a bigger tank or get a refund. Im not experienced with gouramis but i do know they are sometimes territorial. plecos have got to be the most common fish people accidently overstock with as they usually come very small and most people think how can it get much bigger eating algae? lol So dont feel bad about it at least you had the smarts to ask, that alone makes you 1/1000 people. maybe 1/10,000

Note: there are small species of plecos but most of the ones you buy in the petshop are not those.