At what point would you separate out the bully?

[xxalanxx]

It all started when I lost a discus a little more than a month ago (down from 6 to 5).. The pecking got way more aggressive than before. Now only the top 2 of the pecking order have a non-damaged fins & tails. All the other 3 have injured fins and tails. Out of the 3, one of them has severely damaged tail (1/3 of the tail is gone), one of them has badly damaged fin & tail, and the last one has slight damaged fin & tail.

I tried to move the 2 bullies to the QT tank for a few days, but when I get them back, the pecking starts again. I know this is natural, but is there anything I can do? If I need to get more discus, what size should I get? the average size of them or pick the min/max size out of them?

[MendoMan]

I've never had a bully problem with my discus but in the past when had that problem with reef fish i'd set a hand mirror outside the tank up against the glass. It would drive the bully nuts and the bullying would stop.

[Filip]

I'm afraid that you can't do much about it Antony unless you decide to put a few more discus In play , and expect for the aggression to spread or change between them .
Try to match the age and the size of your new stock with the current one if you decide to buy a few more .

I once had a bully that went so aggresive that I had to give him away eventually .
He went nuts , after adding new additions and never got back to normal till his transfer from my tank .
He started instantly with bulling others even right after isolation period , so nothing could "disciplined" him :)

[Willie]

I would suggest that you take the bullies out and rearrange your tank, something as simple as moving your sponge filter around. When you put them back, they will be in a new environment and behave differently. I've never seen discus cause physical damage through bullying. Are you sure the tail damage is from the other fish?

Willie

[Ash92]

I've never had a bully problem with my discus but in the past when had that problem with reef fish i'd set a hand mirror outside the tank up against the glass. It would drive the bully nuts and the bullying would stop.

I done the mirror thing with my oscar lol he went nuts and left the other fish's alone after that

[Skip]

they grow out it..

[xxalanxx]

LOL, interestingly, I have put a mirror. Let see how it works.

What size should I pick if I add more? The largest is around 5.5 in while the smallest among the group is around 4.5.

I tried to take the bullies out (for 3 days) and rearrange the tank. The bullies stayed quiet for a night (not even a day) when I put them back and then they resumed.

[xxalanxx]

Pretty sure the damage is from other discus. I have neon tetra in the tank but I don't think they are big enough to cause the damage.

[clark12]

LOL, interestingly, I have put a mirror. Let see how it works.

What size should I pick if I add more? The largest is around 5.5 in while the smallest among the group is around 4.5.

I tried to take the bullies out (for 3 days) and rearrange the tank. The bullies stayed quiet for a night (not even a day) when I put them back and then they resumed.
interested to see how the mirror works. soon i will be getting 6 or so and have had other types of fish that were bullies and hated it. he drove the other fish right in the corners and wouldn't let them down. i don't want to go through that again. especially when i will have several hundreds into these fish. trying to learn ways to deal with this. hope it works for you

[Keith Perkins]

Not sure what size tank you have, but if you have room you could try adding a piece of driftwood and or a couple groupings of silk plants for cover for the affected fish when the bullying is the worst.

[HappyFace]

I had a discus who bullied everyone in my 200 gallon tank into the far left corner. He did it systematically...he started by not allowing them in his corner then not allowing them in his 1/3 of the tank until finally every fish in the tank was living in the left 5 gallons of "his" 200g tank. I got so sick of seeing all the fish in one corner that I decided to teach him that I am the top dog, not him. I took the handle end of a cleaning brush, put it in the tank and when the bully started up I rushed and tap him lightly with the stick. After the 2nd of 3rd tap all I needed to to was swish water at him and he would stop. I did not hurt him, just let him know I was boss and did not approve. It took 3 days of correcting him 2 x's a day for 20 minutes each time. To this day he will not hand feed from me and he still bullies a little but he is only territorial over his little corner now, not the entire tank. If you've tried everything else without success then this might work for you. Thankfully it did not stress my fish out and put him off feeds. I believe he interpreted it as pecking order and it is natural for them to establish pecking order.

[xxalanxx]

Small update.

The tank size is 55G.

I tried the mirror. Although it didn't work as intended, there was some interesting behavior. In the first few days, the bullies would stop in front of the mirror for a few seconds during the chasing. In fact, there was a a time one of the bullies made a full stop while full speed on the chasing, he had to put both of the side fins out to make a sudden stop. Very new and interesting to that kind of behavior.

The low man of the totem pole is still constantly getting bullied. He doesn't try to look for food anymore. He hides in the top corner all the times. Last week, I had to hand feed him by holding the FDBW in font of him so he could eat. This week starting on Tuesday, he doesn't eat anymore even though I hand feed him. I am going to put him to the QT tank tmr.

On the bright side, the fish that had lost 2/3 of the tails fins has grown 1/3 back. Amazing to see how it grows back so quickly. Furthermore, I dunno if it because of all the chasing exercise, the 2nd bully has grown significantly. He almost catch up the first bully!

[HappyFace]

I'm ok with some bullying in my fish tanks but I don't tolerate extreme bullies. I would prefer to correct a bully than to be forced to setup tanks all over my house with quarantined causalities of war. If other people want to setup special tanks for their physically and emotionally wounded fish and let the bully keep attacking others that's great, it's just not something I would ever consider doing.

When I was a young girl I loved reading books on keeping parrots and training cats and dogs. In some of the books I read it suggested to correct an animal who is misbehaving immediately and in a similar manner that an animal parent would do... grab a cat or dog by it's neck scruff and growl/hiss is one example. Is it just me that thinks fish can be trained/disciplined? I don't mean chase a bully around the tank and terrorize him/her. I mean lay in wait and when it goes on attack mode tap it lightly or swoosh it away until it stops behaving badly. Positive reinforcement training is best but I don't know if there's any way to positively reinforce a bullying fish. :(

You wouldn't stand by and watch your eldest child bully your youngest child until he refuses to eat and wants to commit suicide? In an ideal world you would correct the bully, or am I missing something?

[adrian31@outlook.com]

Is it just me that thinks fish can be trained/disciplined? I don't mean chase a bully around the tank and terrorize him/her. I mean lay in wait and when it goes on attack mode tap it lightly or swoosh it away until it stops behaving badly.

One of my Mercury Blues 5.75" in my 180gal is very dominant, major bullying started when he 'paired' off with a Red Dragon 6". I gave away the Red Dragon to a friend and his bullying calmed right down.

Three weeks later he then started bullying at feeding times and the others were not eating nearly as much because of this. But he only has this dominant behavior at feeding times, so I started nudging him away with the siphon tube whenever he starts to bully. This has worked like a charm, all fish eating their fill once again. Only he is wary of the siphon tube, the others see it like their protective big brother or something.

[akaseth]

Hi new here. Just thought I would let you know, as it seems to stress a few people out, this was becoming an issue for me. Fascinating to watch. About 7 months ago in my tank with 4 discus my blue turq was probably the slight aggressor even though he wasn't the biggest at that time. The blue was at the bottom of the pecking order. But he grew like hell to now be almost the biggest. And it seems to be pay back time. The last few weeks he has been dishing out to everyone, even the bigger pigeon blood who up till then was the boss. Backed them all up into the top corner, and the Turq has been getting picked on quite badly. I didn't pay to see that, up till then they swam nicely as a school around. All I did was scoop him up in my larger net but kept him in the tank. After a few minutes the others began to explore the tank again, even going up to pay him a jail visit. Not sure exactly how long he was there, got a bit distracted but maybe 5-10mins. When I let him out they have mostly been playing nicely, back to swimming around in a school, resting together and he lets them swim around the tank and that was a few days ago, hope it lasts. Worth trying, you may not have to transfer for 3 days to a QT as some recommend but make sure you use a larger size net so that they don't thrash around and injure themselves. Two new discus are going in,pretty much as big as the two bigger ones, after a few more weeks of quarantine, will be interesting to see how that mixes things up.