Fish Harassment

Question
I have a fish question and wanted to ask you since the "fish" people didn't seem too qualified. I have a 5.5 gallon freshwater aquarium with live plants. I have kept white cloud mountain minnows for years. My last female died the other day, and now I have two males left who were born in my tank 2 years ago. One is extremely aggressive and recently split his time harassing the older female and his brother. Now that the female is gone, he CONSTANTLY harasses his smaller brother (with chasing, crashing into him, and trying to prevent him from eating). The harasssed fish spends a lot of time hiding, and this bothers me. I didn't plan on getting any more fish. However, I am now considering this. What do you think? Is the way things are going normal and alright, or do I need to add 1-2 female fish in the mix to lessen the harassment? Any help you can give me would be appreciated. Thanks!

Kyleen

Answer
Hi Kyleen!

~I have to Laugh out loud about your note that the so called "fish" people didn't seem too qualified! But anyway, thanks for trusting in me, I will help you out all I can! :)

~I think there is a simple solution to your problem. Schooling fish seem to always have a problem if there are too few in a group. Your three white clouds is a bit too small and the stronger or the "king" of the group has too few of fish to pick on and it makes it very hard on the more submissive fish. If they were in a group of like 6 fish, then the king of the aquarium has so many fish to pick on that it is evenly distributed with everybody in the group. In short--nobody gets real damage from the picking the king of the school will do. I know this probably sounds really silly and makes no sense but that's how it works out.

~I think the best thing to do is add 2-3 more fish to lesson the amount of aggression....This should solve your problem completely, the school of white clouds will still nip eachother in their sort of schooling play but it won't cause any harm. My 10 Zebra danios constantly chase each-other and nip but nobody does any harm ever.

~I hope I helped! If have anymore questions on anything, just email me again and I will be more than happy to help you out all I can, Kyleen!

Sorry to hear about your last female...  :(:(

Wishing you and your aquarium the very best!

Take care, Kyleen, and happy fishkeeping!
Karen~