Aggressive Rice Fish

[Doom21]

Have a few rice fish one I assume is the alpha male. He attacks the other males and even the one female. I took him out because he never stops attacking them and the female is carrying eggs right now. What should I do? I feel I need more females maybe but I don’t have a local source of rice fish and I barely could cope with the lvl of parasites I got from my last Aqua Huna order. 

[Keeg]

What's the size of the tank and how many fish are in there? Are there ample hiding spaces for all the fish. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I usually put 6 or more together helps them diffuse the fairly minimal aggression but when there’s only a couple females and more males then females it can be harder. @Keegis right about site breaks and cover - floating plants whether dwarf water lettuce, salvinia, or other non-traditional floaters like guppy grass or water wisteria or hornwort. It can help. @wendypizzahad a great post on sexing ricefish that could be helpful. 

A couple other options - you can put him in timeout - in a breeder box by himself and see if that takes some of the wind out of his sails. You could put him in another tank by himself. The trouble is that those alphas typically have the best color as they’ve been getting more food and are fitter so you want those genetics in your pool. You could put him in for a couple days from an alternative setup and then pull him out to protect the females. 

[Doom21]

On 11/15/2021 at 11:35 AM, Keeg said:

What's the size of the tank and how many fish are in there? Are there ample hiding spaces for all the fish. 

I used to have them in a 20 Gallon bucket but I had to move recently. There are 5 2 females 3 males seems like the biggest female is aggressive too but she is too big to catch the others. I also have 4 Cherry shrimp too the fish never bother them tho. I had a ceramic hide a log 2 banana plants and a filter. When I noticed it I ordered guppy grass thought it might help. Should I wait to put the really aggressive male back in with the plants? 

[Hobbit]

It’s been almost a week but I’d love an update on how you’re doing with the aggressive male. I have lots of ricefish (never less than a group of 12) and I’ve noticed that the dominant males try to stake out a territory. If there aren’t a lot of “zones” in your tank, they just consider the whole tank their territory. 😅 Hoping the guppy grass helped this issue for you!