Baby guppies picking at a big Cory?

[DaveDoolittle]

I have a few quarantine & misc 10-gallon tanks in the basement that I was working with today. I noticed in one that some baby guppies about 1 cm long were picking at the scales of an ancient old Cory I have in there. (they weren't picking at the other Cory the same size in the same tank) I'd never seen that behavior before, and while the Cory didn't seem too bothered by it, I netted it and moved it upstairs to a 55-gallon community tank with a handful of other, smaller Corys.

Have any of you seen similar behavior before? Thoughts?

I'll work on posting a short video.

[DaveDoolittle]

video:

View My Video

http://tinypic.com/r/ml5rpt/9

[DaveDoolittle]

Thanks folks! It was a pleasure!

[catfishchaos]

I know its not a great feeling to have no replies, let alone to your first post here). I hope you aren't to discouraged, although it seems like its pretty fast paced most of the time PC just slows down sometimes but it always seems to pick back up in time. Keep in mind as well that many people don't know why this is happening (myself included) and those people often feel like they can't contribute in any way and move on. Most of those people also don't look at post counts so although not guaranteed you may have gotten a warmer welcome to Planet had you mentioned your new here.

I personally am Sorry I missed your post but truthfully I've missed a lot of them. There was a time I was much more of a frequent flier and although my love for catfish never faulted my mental state did (and remains not overly good- the joys of depression) although I am trying to get back on the horse if you will as talking about things I'm passionate does help but at times it remains hard to do.

With all of that said let me be the first to welcome you to PlanetCatfish!

Now onto trying to help (because as Earlier I have no idea why this would be happening but I can at least try and get more information so others can better help you or I can try my hand at making a theory or conjecture.

How ancient are we talking here?
Since you removed the cory have the guppy babies switched targets?
Since you moved the cory has it been getting picked on by any fish in the community tank in a similar fashion?
Has the Cory's behavior changed at all since the move?

The answers to these questions will really just raise more questions but we need to hone in on possibilities and that means either somebody knows whats going on and helps (hopefully) or we keep ruling things out until we get there.

I hope this helps!

[Bas Pels]

Generally speaking, lifebearers are corpse eaters in nature. If thge Corydoras is really quiet, your guppies might consider it fair prey

I've never seen it happen in my tanks - lifebearers attacking a living fish, but quite often with a (freshly) dead one