Fishy Behavior

A few months ago I purchased a new male tequila sunrise guppy and several small gold barbs. I've noticed that my new guppy does not seem to be interested in mating with my young female guppy, but rather tries to entice my small gold barbs with its mating dance ritual and my gold barbs have no real interest in him what-so-ever. I have heard that guppies are capable of mating with mollies, platties and sword-tails, but mainly because they all reproduce live-bearing fry, although more often then not the fish which are born can be too mutant for survival. It has been said that a male guppy is more persistent mating then these other live-bearing species and that it can cause harm to other female species. So perhaps my guppy is in no way capable of reproducing with a gold barb and perhaps he is more enticed by the gold barbs because they have similar colors as himself. Or it could possibly be a sign of aggression but it does not seem like overly aggressive behavior as when my guppies fight they have a nose to nose stare down and move around the tank until one seems to tire himself out and retreat.

Current Tank Setup & Fish *Updated*

I've recently donated dozens of my guppies(all but one actually) to live in aquariums all around DC, so I'm now down to one 10 gallon fish tank (purchased from Petco) which has made life a lot easier now that I'm in college. I kept only one of my bred guppies, purchased 2 new guppies, bought 5 small gold barbs which will hopefully grow to befriend the 2 larger barbs I currently own and I still have my 1 black neon tetra(whom doesn't seem to mind being solo).

Although I have 11 fish currently in a 10 gallon tank, I did purchase a new Aqueon Aquarium Power Filter (20gal) filtration system which is made to accomodate a larger tank. I could classify my tank as overstocked by a smidge, as for each 1 inch of fish should be 1 gallon of water(this is a rule of thumb I learned in school but some say otherwise for different fish) although the larger filtration system should hopefully make up for the tank size. I do like the Aqueon brand for power filters thus far and my only complaint is that the lid of the filter seems to rattle a little on occasion but this might just be my indicator to clean out the filter cartridge or replace it.

My fish's current staple diet is the Aqueon Tropical Flakes, this seems to be their favorite of the many different flake foods I've tried in the past...I honestly think they love this more than the Hikari Freeze-dried Brine Shimp I give them as a treat.

I haven't had much luck with any aquatic plants I've purchased from local pet stores so I decided to take some of my Devil's Ivy, snip off a few vines and place them into my tank. Surprisingly it seems to give off a lot of oxygen into the tank and started growing roots almost immediately. I really am not sure if this plant is toxic or not but the fish don't seem to be harmed thus far and it has been in their for nearly 4 weeks now.

I have a new Aqueon Deluxe Full Fluorescent Black Aquarium Hood (20" Length) which is setup on a timer so I have it running for a good 8hrs starting at sundown. I didn't really care for the color and brightness this hood gave off but I think it's starting to grow on me and the plants seem to be doing great so far.

As for substrate I use a mix of old gravel I've been using for awhile now which I believe is a mix of PETCO Nutmeg Mix Aquarium Gravel, PETCO Pebble Beach Mix Aquarium Gravel and PETCO Rock Gravel Accents in Black Miami Beach. This combination makes for a natural looking gravel substrate and the rocks help keep the Devil's Ivy in place.

The background of my fish tank is a design I created on my computer which took 3 whole sheets of print paper and a little tape to adhere it all in place.

As for water conditioners and additives I'm currently using Jungle Plant Care Solutions Fertilizer and Water Conditioner, PIMAFIX and MELAFIX (I use them all as directed on the bottle).

After 2 weeks I changed a little more then a liter of water and added some of my water additives to it, washed off the Aqueon filter cartridge and placed it back into the filter. I also used my new battery operated Eheim Gravel Vacuum which does work nicely and is great for getting out any debry the filtration system missed, this doesn't seem to disturb the fish while I'm using this either.

So that's pretty much it for how I run my current tank setup, its been working great, the water still looks clean enough to drink and my new barbs seemed to have a grown a bit!