Guppys

[C.w.deegan]

I moved some fish around between my 3 tanks and ended up with a empty tank 20 gallon I restocked it with 6 fancy guppys 2 male 4 female I know they will breed and increase their numbers my question is is there anything specific I need to know for keeping guppys I have a sand substrate drift wood a few large rocks and artificial plants in the tank with a hob filter and a heater and a air stone is there anything els I need or should watch out for iv never had guppys in any of my tanks before

[Carlyh569]

Hi
I am a bit of a novice fish keeper still but I too bought guppies and frankly they do nothing but breed!! I did initially buy a little netted box that you can attach to the tank and move the female into when she's due to pop but frankly I never have any real idea when that is so usually miss it!!
What I do, do, is watch the girls closely and the morning they look skinnier than the day before I start hunting out the babies. I take all the ornaments out, net them up and move them to a smaller tank with no other fish in. My first time I managed to find 6 that all grew really well and in the next drop I found 8 and that was about 3 weeks later.
I feed the babies 3 times a day and then gave them away to new homes when they were 5 weeks old as big enough at this point not to get eaten! Basically they can produce loads of fry at a time but most will get eaten immediately. Mine always have them at night and with black gravel and quite a few hiding places I think the number of babies I have rescued has actually been pretty high given they are not separated to birth. Hope this helps!