I recently inherited my son's aquarium and he had a mix of fish breeds: two Oscras and three Jack Dempsies. They were doing OK together but there was a bully in the tank, as shown above. I would, on occassion, tap at the glass to break up a fight he started, but then he began to just ignore me.

Well, last week he started another fight, this time with another Jack Dempsey, and when I tapped on the glass, he saw me (and ignored me) and I lost my cool. I scooped him up from the water and kept him out of it for about a half a minute, reminding him that I was the boss. It sounds really weird, but he hasn't been fighting this past week and all the fish swim in a school formation now.

I don't know if this is cruelty, what do you think?

The Ninth Scribe

I think it is cruel to take the fish out of the water unnecessary. You should stop doing this, if you dont like your fishes behaviour then either put it in another tank or rehome it.

Your fish just reacts to the circumstance, put you hand in the tank and it will get out of the way, remove the hand and it will try to be boss again by being aggressive. The thing you have to remember is that your fish is going with its instinct. I doubt you will be able to get rid of its instinct by removing it from the tank for a short while every time it 'misbehaves'

Everything is fine at the moment but that is only because of the stress you have put the fish through

Fish are not smart they can't understand discipline. Thats why its cruel. How would you like it if you were shoved under water for half a minute and didn't know what you did.

If theres a fight and tapping on the glass doesn't brake it up use a net to separate the fish.

Um, this is cruelty. They have no idea why you're doing this and will not learn from it instead they will learn to be frightened of you. If the fish keeps bullying, they need to be seperated from the other fish for safety.
Please don't do that to the fish anymore.

me personaly i would say that it is creulty to the fish but imagine if you were put in water for summit you had no idea what for, i bet you would be hacked off would you????
the solution is either to put up a screen or a divider to stop the bully or put the bully into another tank, if you dont have another tank thyen ask your local retailer to see if he will look after him for a while, I DONT KNOW IF THIS WORKS but someone told me if you keep re-arranging the decor ie all the itmes in your tank then the fish will think it has been re-homed, but like i said i dont know if this wotks or now because someone told me to do it when my r,t,b,s was bullying and harrassing the other red tailed blk shark,
other than that i would see if your retailer will do you a trade for the bully, at leats that way your not losing out on a fish , even if you get some decholrinator or stress coat

you will be better off than you were with a tank full of bullys