nippy male guppies

[labnjab]

I had seperate our male guppies from the females today. They are in the 10 gallon breeder. They seemed to become very agressive today, chaseing the females and nipping at their vent. I have 2 males and 4 females. These females have been pregnant for over 30 days. I there anyway to help them give birth, or is seperating the males the only way to help.

[graycurse]

Just let them be. They'll do it eventually. Sometimes the males or other fish "sense" when one's about to give birth and start nipping in order to get a quick free meal as soon as a baby's born.

[robnepper]

Yep. don't fuss around the tank. The ladies don't like it much and if they get stressed out they will with hold the fry and some times abort them. I always moved my female to her own 10 gallon birthing tank so the dudes wouldn't stress her out. And chances are the males are smelling when the females birth canal is opening. This is common.

[labnjab]

I had the males in a seperate 10 gallon, but I had a few fish get sick, so I had to move them out to use the 10 gallon as a quarentine tank, but its been nearly 5 or 6 weeks and they still haven't given birth, but I did add some live floating plants so maybe that will help.

[troy]

Maybe they gave birth and the babies got eaten. Did they ever lose a noticeable amount of girth?

[labnjab]

nope, they are all still very large, seem to be getting larger by the week.

[robnepper]

Looks like you're going to have lots of kids!

[labnjab]

yeah, if they ever decide to give birth. I also have a Black mystery snail in the same tank that should be laying eggs in a few days