Guppies and fry?

[chelleshark]

I have a 10 gallon tank with three guppies (2 female, 1 male), 2 ghost shrimp, and 1 apple (aka golden mystery snail).

Today, I noticed a single tiny baby fish swimming around. I am pretty sure that guppies have more than one fish at a time, so I assume that the others were eaten whenever they were born. I didn't want the same fate to befall this guppy, so I made a makeshift separate netting area using my (cleaned) wedding veil. I ordered a nursery net box that attaches to the side of the tank from Amazon for the future. We are planning on getting my daughter a tank for her bedroom, so we plan on putting a few future fry in there, and I have friends who want some fry later.

Anyway...my questions are:

1) How do I know that one of my guppies is pregnant? I've had my fish for about a month and a half, and one of the females has always been fat/round.

2) How do I know when she is about to give birth? What should I do if I don't want the guppies to be eaten?

3) Any other fry advice?

 

[Fishies86]

I have a 10 gallon tank with three guppies (2 female, 1 male), 2 ghost shrimp, and 1 apple (aka golden mystery snail).

Today, I noticed a single tiny baby fish swimming around. I am pretty sure that guppies have more than one fish at a time, so I assume that the others were eaten whenever they were born. I didn't want the same fate to befall this guppy, so I made a makeshift separate netting area using my (cleaned) wedding veil. I ordered a nursery net box that attaches to the side of the tank from Amazon for the future. We are planning on getting my daughter a tank for her bedroom, so we plan on putting a few future fry in there, and I have friends who want some fry later.

Anyway...my questions are:

1) How do I know that one of my guppies is pregnant? I've had my fish for about a month and a half, and one of the females has always been fat/round.

2) How do I know when she is about to give birth? What should I do if I don't want the guppies to be eaten?

3) Any other fry advice?

I would keep an eye out over the next few days, especially of your tank is planted. My guppy fry hide to several days and I think I've only got two, then suddenly I find another 12!

As to whether your guppy is pregnant. If there's a male there, you can pretty much assume she's always pregnant! if her gravid spot is black, she's pregnant. The gestation period is about a month. Mine are usually spot on at 28 days.

The best sign of imminent birth is her squaring off. Her belly kinda goes from this U to this \_/. they often start hanging out in quiet corners of the tank.

If you want to keep the guppy fry alive, your best bet is to have lots of soft fuzzy leaved plants for them to hide in, such as cabomba or elodea. My first lot of fry, I only had an amazon sword and two broad leaved non-aquatics. 12 survived. The second lot, I had elodea, cabomba and lillaeopsos. 27 survived. Now I seem to have a tank full of thousands of guppy fry

Hope this helps!

 

[chelleshark]

Thank you!

My aquarium isn't planted. I'm pretty much a novice, so I really didn't want the added concern of properly caring for plants. I have 3 pottery shaped fish cave things (my ghost shrimp love to hide in these while they molt their shells) and several plastic plants.

I hope I do find some more, it might seem silly, but I feel bad that I didn't notice and some were eaten. Then again, I cry when a fish dies so I might just be sensitive. Ha.

 

[Fishies86]

Thank you!

My aquarium isn't planted. I'm pretty much a novice, so I really didn't want the added concern of properly caring for plants. I have 3 pottery shaped fish cave things (my ghost shrimp love to hide in these while they molt their shells) and several plastic plants.

I hope I do find some more, it might seem silly, but I feel bad that I didn't notice and some were eaten. Then again, I cry when a fish dies so I might just be sensitive. Ha.

Plastic plants will work just as well they can hide in the gravel when they're very young too. I've got guppies, tetras, corys am otos in my tank. I've never seen any get eaten.
I cry when I fish dies too! They're my babies

 

[Rosenweiss]

Another idea is when your guppy squares off, put her in the breeding net so she'll give birth to the fry in there. Then you can remove her. If you definitely want all the fry to live you can give them a tank to themselves!