Sudden death , but zero symptoms

[saiwong]

Hello,

I had a pregnant guppy that I moved into a breeding box. After a few days it gave birth to alot of fry. Everything ok so far.

In order to give the female guppy a good break from harrestment from the male gupppy's I move her to a separate quarantine tank. However in the quarantine I noticed she was ignoring any food as if she was 'food blind' (would swim past food millimeters from her face. Today I found her dead. There were no signs of desease or physical attack and her belly didn't look thin.

So what caused her death? Was it some sort of desease with no symptoms or was it stress from birthing fry or being placed in a new environment of the quarantine tank?

Is the a way to prevent this in the future?

thanks in advance

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello,

I had a pregnant guppy that I moved into a breeding box. After a few days it gave birth to alot of fry. Everything ok so far.

In order to give the female guppy a good break from harrestment from the male gupppy's I move her to a separate quarantine tank. However in the quarantine I noticed she was ignoring any food as if she was 'food blind' (would swim past food millimeters from her face. Today I found her dead. There were no signs of desease or physical attack and her belly didn't look thin.

So what caused her death? Was it some sort of desease with no symptoms or was it stress from birthing fry or being placed in a new environment of the quarantine tank?


Is the a way to prevent this in the future?

thanks in advance

3 possibilities are 1) she was over stressed by the pregnancy. 2) the stress of being moved so soon after delivering. 3) there was something in the new water that killed her "slowly".
Ways to avoid this in the future: If this is an older fish, it's possible that there's nothing you can do to prevent it past not breeding her. If you use a large enough birthing tank, put in a divider so she is separated from the fry after birth and can recover with no added stress. My personal choice is to make sure you have a lot of fine leaved plants for the fry to hide in and just leave the female in the tank and remove the fry. If you must move her, don't do it until she starts eating again. The plants should keep the fry from getting eaten and if you do lose a few fry, consider it the cost of not losing the parent. When I first started breeding fish, my Mentor told me this: " You do whatever you have to to not lose the breeders. Breeders can have another spawn soon while it will take some time, maybe years depending on the fish specie, for the fry to spawn." That has always stuck with me. My breeder fish are never moved from their spawning tank.
In the case of Guppies, I kept the females in a 5 ( for a single) or 10 gallon (for 2 females) tank and added the male to that tank. When the females showed they were pregnant, I removed the male to another tank and added more plants to the female's tank. After the birth(s), I moved the fry. Hope this helps

 

[Colin_T]

You don't want to handle gravid (pregnant) livebearer fish because you can damage them or the babies. If you have to move them, use a net to carefully and quickly catch her, keep her in the net in the water. Then use a plastic container to scoop her up in some water in the net. Keep her in the water and move her to a separate tank.

Breeding traps are awful things that regularly stress the female. Ideally you want females only in the tank and have lots of fine leaf plants and floating plants like Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta). Then the females don't have to be moved and can give birth where they are. The babies usually hang out by the surface among the floating plants and you can use a plastic container to scoop the fry out and put them somewhere else if you like. However, female guppies don't normally eat the babies if they are well fed and not stressed out.

Most common female livebearers can carry up to 6 or more sperm packets from breeding with different males. They can use the sperm packets any time they want and normally use them when conditions are good (lots of food, warm water, lots of plants, no predators). The sperm packets allow females to fertilise eggs without any males present for up to a year or more.

If you want to breed livebearers, have a tank with males and a separate tank with females. When the females have used all their sperm packets, pick a female and move her to a tank with a male, leave them together for a week, then separate them.

---------------

Female livebearers should be at least 6 (preferably 12) months old before they are bred. Most common livebearers sold in shops are 3-4 months old and the younger females regularly have more issues giving birth for the first time and many die because of this.

Guppies are badly inbred and are very weak now compared to 50 years ago. The inbreeding, being a young female, and being moved while heavily gravid, probably caused the death of the fish.

Guppies and most other common livebearing fishes need water with lots of minerals in. They do best in water with a GH (general hardness) around 200ppm and a pH above 7.0.

 

[saiwong]

Hello,

Thanks for your responces. But from the replies I suspect you are professional breeders. However I am just an 'average joe' who keeps fish & don't have as many tanks as the pros. I don't have enough tanks to separate male and female guppy's, they just live in a community tank. I just check the fish & if I notice a female fish is about to give birth, I move it to a breeding box.

The setup is that my breeding box sits in my small fry tank. When the female guppy gives birth, the fry just fall down through the slots at the bottom & the fry end up in the main fry tank.

For non-pro fishkeepers who don't have the luxury of multiple tanks, what advice would you provide?

p.s. once my female guppy gave birth it still ate normally and I gave it 2 days before I moved it to quarantine. Should I have waited a few more days ?

 

[Colin_T]

In your situation with only one tank, I would leave the females in the main tank and have lots of floating plants in the tank. When you notice baby fish among the plants, scoop them out and put them in a breeding net/ trap so they are isolated from the bigger fish.

If you leave the female for a week after giving birth and then move her, there would be much less chance of anything happening to her due to the move.

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello,

Thanks for your responces. But from the replies I suspect you are professional breeders. However I am just an 'average joe' who keeps fish & don't have as many tanks as the pros. I don't have enough tanks to separate male and female guppy's, they just live in a community tank. I just check the fish & if I notice a female fish is about to give birth, I move it to a breeding box.

The setup is that my breeding box sits in my small fry tank. When the female guppy gives birth, the fry just fall down through the slots at the bottom & the fry end up in the main fry tank.

For non-pro fishkeepers who don't have the luxury of multiple tanks, what advice would you provide?

p.s. once my female guppy gave birth it still ate normally and I gave it 2 days before I moved it to quarantine. Should I have waited a few more days ?

Unfortunately, if the female was eating before you moved her, it sounds like there was something in the water in the new tank you moved her to.

There are ways to reduce the stress of using a breeder box but it will involve you doing some DIY work. You can make a larger "container" out of plexiglass or netting that could take up say, 25% of the surface area of the fry tank. Make slits along the bottom (it's best you use plexi for the bottom) so the the fry can still drop down in the main part of the fry tank. This way, there is no rush to move the female(s) out of there. Keep fine leaved plants in this area as well so that should any fry not fall down, they have a place to hide.
Another option is as Colin described and just keep a nice amount of fine leaved plants in your main tank for the fry to hide among. Sadly, with livebearers, they can overpopulate a tank very easily. If you want to save every fry that is born, you will need to have more than one or two tanks. That's just the reality of keeping livebearers.

 

[saiwong]

Thanks for your comments, what I could do in future to reduce stress on the pregnant guppy is to use a hatchery net. Placing lots of plants along with the pregnant fish into the hatchery should produce a less stressful environment.

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks for your comments, what I could do in future to reduce stress on the pregnant guppy is to use a hatchery net. Placing lots of plants along with the pregnant fish into the hatchery should produce a less stressful environment.

If you are making the netting, make the area as large as possible. If you are purchasing a pre made hatchery net/box, get the biggest one you can.

 

[Reefstark]

She may have just been old or had complications from the large amount of fry try keeping your female too make ratio higher I’ve done that in the past 4 females for every one male