About Guppies - Water Temps - Myth and Facts?

[Autumnsky]

This thread was prompted but some comments and thoughts from another thread.

What are the myths and facts of guppy keeping. I just started keeping guppies after not having them since I was a kid.

First and foremost I was disappointed by the available stock in the LFS. As we must have had some amazing guppy breeders where I lived in Southern California as a child.

Also I am noticing conflicting information at times, which could just be each persons experiences.

Let's talk about the things you wonder about for guppies.

 

[meegosh]

Fact, guppies can store sperm and have multiple broods from the stored sperm. This means that even a new female guppy from the store's female tank can be pregnant and drop a bunch of fry with no males in sight.

 

[Autumnsky]

Not cool water fish?!?

The first experiences I had with guppies was from a farm.

My grandparents had guppies in their livestock watering troughs fed from very cold well water, and they were fine, bread like crazy.

We used to get them out of ditches too, in fairly cold water. I would say 60 something degrees... And they had to have lived through the winter and the bred A LOT, like guppies do, but in the very cold water, they did all right.


But as it was explained to me...through the selective breeding process, they bred for characteristics, that didn't have anything to do with hardiness. So the hybrids are somewhat delicate. And prefer them warm tropical temperature water. Also breed better in warmer water.

Household temps can fluctuate and be careful to not have an unheated tank next to an A/C vent, I lost some Betta to that, long ago.

I have spent 40 years thinking guppies were cool (cold) water fish that could live in warmer water too!!! LOL Only learned this in the last few months with starting breeding guppies and being here on AA

 

[Autumnsky]

Meegosh
Just heard about that in the last couple of weeks OMG! WOW

So if I have a female with a special male, how long till I can get the special male offspring?

 

[jetajockey]

If you got them out of ditches they were probably not guppies, but it's not unheard of to find them in waterways in warmer climates.

Mosquitofish (gambusia affinis/gambusia holbrooki) look a lot like guppies, especially the females, although they have minimal color compared to the pet store versions.

Guppies are tropical fish, as their native range is tropical climates, but they are very versatile and can live in a pretty wide range of temperatures. This is not unique among tropicals, many can do this, people just don't try it very often, plus cooler temps and cold blooded animals means slow metabolism, activity, etc. That said, it's never a bad idea to try to mimic what the fish naturally was found in, temperature wise, but there is plenty of wiggle room, imo.


Guppies are, for the most part, not hybrids. The different color strains are all from selectively breeding certain characteristics in the fish, they are all the same species. There is some things going around about possible guppy x molly hybrids, but it's pretty rare. Guppies do however interbreed easily with endlers livebearers. There is some debate on whether endlers are a different species and not a subspecies of poecilia reticulata, though. If you look at endlers and wild type guppies from central/sa you'll see that they share a lot of traits with one another.

 

[Autumnsky]

The ones in the livestock troughs looked like wild guppies, spotted, kinda like Endler's, full of color and really pretty. Different location and time frame -the ones from the ditch were less color but had color very light and a little more like Mosquito fish.

 

[Autumnsky]

I have seen some of the wide bodies guppies, and they look different more like they could be a cross, but they really just look like wide bodied guppies, at least the ones I had seen.