Guppies (feeder and fancy)

[ziffus]

I've been breeding guppies for the last few years, but without any true motive (other then saving myself the extra money *grin*). But for the last 2 years, I've decided to take on a different approach with the feeder guppies. I wanted to see how far I could push them, temp wise.

I am now on the 10th or so generation. I've lost the actual count due to an imbreeding accident (forgot to remove a male from one of my tanks...oops). At any rate - as it stands right now, the guppies dislike anything above 68.5. Even if I were to increase the temp at 1 degree per day (or less) the guppies would show major signs of stress. If I lower the temp to 65 or so, they seem to have no reaction, or at least a reaction compared to raising the temp. Keep in mind that somewhere around the first 1-3 generations, I had the temp set at/around 74*F. Are the guppies adapting to the lower temps, or are they merely tolerating it?

So where am I going with this? Well, to say that fish can't be breed for specific temperatures would be ignorant. But my main question is, has anyone ever fooled around with this?

I forgot to mention one side effect on lowering the temperatures - which should be a given. Breeding is minimal once 66* is reached.

 

[Allivymar]

Wow how wild! I've never bred guppies, but certainly have seen lots of info about them, and have never come across such fussy ones. I'm amazed how specific the temp range is; basically within a 2.5 degree range for breeding! Amazing. Hopefully someone with some experience with guppies will pop in and add to this.

 

[Terry]

I am still abit confused, because over here in the UK we don't have feeder and fancy guppys.
We just have guppys.

Like i said yesterday on a guppy post, i had a look at one of my ordering books and i counted 171 differant types of guppy and that isn't all there are there is probably more out there. Especally with feeder guppys as well (what ever they are).

Back to the temp thing, over the years i have bred guppys on thousends of accassions from temps of about 68 degress up to about 78-80 degress. I think that guppys are a very good adapting fish. they will tollerate a wide range of temps.

I have never really thought about the temp thing, mostly all i tend to do is look at the differant colour variations that they produce.

Ignorance on my part i think.

 

[ziffus]

As for acurate temp reading, I've definatly come across a problem. I'm using a stick-on thermometer, a radioshack indoor/outdoor therm., and an AWS scientific digital therm. Seems the AWS shows a different of 1*F - which means temps I had been using 3+ years ago were way off. Is everyone using a mercury-based thermometer?


Along with temp issues, I've messed around with general feeding habbits. At one point, the feeders were quite dependant on algae. It worked out quite well when I was out of town for a week. Not exactly sure if they were eating the algae or were picking the algae, looking for food. When I came back after a week, they seemed quite healthy.

off topic:
Once the algae became a major problem in the tanks, I went out and found 20-30 tadpoles that cleaned the glass in a good 2 days. I need to find out the specific breed that I was using (american toad I believe - quite vague) and then find out if anyone carries tadpoles 24/7.

 

[sweetsuvvyb]

Although a mercury thermometer is more accurate, it might be hard to come by (a lot of places don't sell them anymore). Digital thermometers offer a great deal of precision, and if you're looking at changes in temperature, precision is all you really need.