Platy: Alpha male behavior

[kradeij]

There are 3 adults platies (and numerous fries) in my 2ft tank: 2males and 1 female. I noticed that one of the male is always hiding in a corner of the tank whereas the other male will always "hang out" with the female platy , and I keep wondering why. I eventually found out that whenever the male platy come out of hiding and approach the female platy, the dorminant male will chase it back to its corner .

I was wondering whether anyone noticed similar behavior in their platies as I though such behavior would not exists in platies.

[taikiat]

i believe that all fishes will exhibit a certain kind of aggressive manner

1) during mating seasons (which is almost all the time for platies, i believe)
2) small female to male ratio, in your case 1:2

It's all part of natural selection, strong guys get the chicks. ^^

[Kingfisher]

Yes, I also observed this behavior in my Swordtails. It'll chase away other males.

[Jungle-mania]

you might want to get a new girlfriend for your other platy . Yeah, but it's true, it is the battle of the male vs male for the contention of the female's attention. My male ram appparently killed off his competitior quite literally. Decided to keep the pair as itself, to save anymore bloodshed.

[mickthefish]

this happens with nearly all species you will get a dominant male who wants to pass his genes on, the only way to rectify it is to get 2-3 more females then the dominance might be subdued.
mick

[kradeij]

I have been observing the fishes and it seems that the dominated platy is not hurt, it's eating normally and there's no injuries so I guess I would just let it be.

Getting more females would be out of the questions as I don't want the tank to be overcrowded. Well, there's at least 5 fries so I reckon there bound to be a couple of female platies.

[Justikanz]

On the contrary, it would be better to get more males... Then the poor guy will not be the only one being bullied...

[mickthefish]

justin if the lad gets more males, then the poor little sod might get bullied even more,
i would still go for more females, in our auctions they are always sold in trios 1male 2 females, could you imagine if he got more males the female would never be able to get away for a rest, haha
mick

[Justikanz]

Thomas, you mean...

I guess, my suggesstion works when there are enough females... But if there are only 2 males and 1 is bring dominated badly, then a good solution would be to get more males to disperse the unneccesary attention...