guppy growth

[crittergal]

I am wondering how fast a guppy fry should grow. I have a few babies that are approx 3 months old but do not seem to be growing all that fast. I feed ground flakes and chopped baby brime shrimp,(frozen) and dry shrimp I add approx 1-2 gal water to the tank weekly and if I could quess I would say the babies are only 1/8-1/4" in size at 3 months old. I feed 2 times daily small pinches. What am I doing wrong?

 

[BBradbury]

Your Guppies

I am wondering how fast a guppy fry should grow. I have a few babies that are approx 3 months old but do not seem to be growing all that fast. I feed ground flakes and chopped baby brime shrimp,(frozen) and dry shrimp I add approx 1-2 gal water to the tank weekly and if I could quess I would say the babies are only 1/8-1/4" in size at 3 months old. I feed 2 times daily small pinches. What am I doing wrong?

Hello crit...

Your guppies are able to have little ones at about 2 to 3 months and are considered adults at 6 months.

Fry will grow best with a feeding every couple of hours if you're able to do it. If not, 6 very small feedings a day is fine. I feed my Guppies a little frozen food, a small bit of freeze dried and a very little bit of flaked food. I feed the adults twice a week and the little ones about every other day, if the fish are separated. If you feed too much, the extra food can cause water chemistry problems.

Have fun!

B

 

[Mebbid]

Fish regularly release growth inhibiting hormones into the water. To increase growth you will need to increase the water change schedule. For fry tanks 10% daily is recommended for the fastest growth. What do you do for your current water change schedule?

 

[pip walters]

Food, oxygen and temperature are what you need to consider. no need to chop baby brine shrimp - newly born guppies can take freshly hatched brine shrimp nauplii. Temperature of around 75F and regular small feeds. They may not be getting enough food - keep them fed so they always have a little bulge in their belly.

Sorry Mebbid, but not sure how water changes increase growth - yes you need to keep your water quality optimal, but that is the case for any aquarium.

 

[Mebbid]

Food, oxygen and temperature are what you need to consider. no need to chop baby brine shrimp - newly born guppies can take freshly hatched brine shrimp nauplii. Temperature of around 75F and regular small feeds. They may not be getting enough food - keep them fed so they always have a little bulge in their belly.

Sorry Mebbid, but not sure how water changes increase growth - yes you need to keep your water quality optimal, but that is the case for any aquarium.

Water changes pull out a growth suppressing hormone in the water. My room mate and I each had a school of guppies born within a week or 2 of each of each other. Both were kept in 10g tanks and fed approximately the same amount with air powered sponge filters in the tanks.. Mine were given daily 10% water changes and hers were given weekly 25% water changes.

Now that they have reached breeding age and mine are nearly fully grown sized guppies while hers have barely grown. We were talking to a breeder about it when they mentioned hormones that are released into the water by fish when my room mate decided to pull a few out of her 10g fry tank and stick them into a hob breeder box on a 29g tank that regularly gets bigger water changes. The 5 guppies that were placed in the 2 qt breeder box have nearly doubled in size in just a little over a month while the ones in the 10g tank have hardly changed.

Water changes are the way to go to get guppies to grow faster.

 

[crittergal]

thank you all for your imput on my babies. I will increase feeding and also water changes. I am retired so am home all day most of the time so that wont be a problem. I will let you know in about a month if there is a difference in growth.