ReyK
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hello all, there's a bit of reading to this inquiry, so my apologies, but here it goes:
I currently have what appears to be 3 male, 2 female, and 1 currently unsexed guppy in my 15-gallon column tank, and before you say it, yes, I know I should have at least 2 females for every male. I'll get to that part in a bit.
I bought the two females pregnant, and I thought two of the males were young females when I got them, but it turns out they're just males with very small fins and tails. The unsexed gup (at least I think it's a guppy) is one I think hopped a ride on one of the plants I bought at the beginning of February and I found it in my tank a couple days later. It's almost tripled in size since I first found it and moved it to my nursery tank, so I put it back in with my other guppies as soon as I was confident it was big and strong enough to not get cannibalized by the older fish, which was about two or three weeks ago.
When I first got the pregnant females, I put them in my 3-gallon shrimp tank for them to give birth since it has a gentle sponge filter. Once they'd given birth, I waited an extra day to move them to make sure they were finished birthing, then moved them to the larger tank to join the others. I started out with about 15 babies if I counted correctly, and about two or three weeks later, I'm down to somewhere between 7 and 10 babies, but they're still too young to sex yet, but when they are old enough, I plan to keep most if not all the females and either sell or give away the males.
My question is, how many guppies should I keep in my 15-gallon tank without overpopulating it? If it makes any difference, it has an Aqueon QuietFlow 10 filter that is rated for up to 20 gallons, about 5 different species of plants, and 3 ghost shrimp and 2 black mystery snails for a clean-up crew. Oh, and it's heated to between 75 and 80 F too if that helps any.
Thank you for your input
I currently have what appears to be 3 male, 2 female, and 1 currently unsexed guppy in my 15-gallon column tank, and before you say it, yes, I know I should have at least 2 females for every male. I'll get to that part in a bit.
I bought the two females pregnant, and I thought two of the males were young females when I got them, but it turns out they're just males with very small fins and tails. The unsexed gup (at least I think it's a guppy) is one I think hopped a ride on one of the plants I bought at the beginning of February and I found it in my tank a couple days later. It's almost tripled in size since I first found it and moved it to my nursery tank, so I put it back in with my other guppies as soon as I was confident it was big and strong enough to not get cannibalized by the older fish, which was about two or three weeks ago.
When I first got the pregnant females, I put them in my 3-gallon shrimp tank for them to give birth since it has a gentle sponge filter. Once they'd given birth, I waited an extra day to move them to make sure they were finished birthing, then moved them to the larger tank to join the others. I started out with about 15 babies if I counted correctly, and about two or three weeks later, I'm down to somewhere between 7 and 10 babies, but they're still too young to sex yet, but when they are old enough, I plan to keep most if not all the females and either sell or give away the males.
My question is, how many guppies should I keep in my 15-gallon tank without overpopulating it? If it makes any difference, it has an Aqueon QuietFlow 10 filter that is rated for up to 20 gallons, about 5 different species of plants, and 3 ghost shrimp and 2 black mystery snails for a clean-up crew. Oh, and it's heated to between 75 and 80 F too if that helps any.
Thank you for your input
