Got my first tank, a free 29g a little over a year ago. Lots of changes, lots of learning, have 3 tanks now, but one constant is my guppies are always dying. Is it common for gups to live only 1-3 months? We have had 3 very large females who lived for 1 year ( though a guy at the local fish rescue suggested they may have been atleast 1/2 mosquito fish due to their size) and 2 males last about 6-7 months but most others seem very short lived. Most of the time my tank is slightly overstocked, maybe, but even when populations are low it doesn't seem to be better. I'm guessing it's poor breeding stock, most of them come from the local petsmart/petco, but we have gotten some from " local breeders" ie people with guppies and craigslist adds, and several from the high end local fish stores(only one of which seemed to last any longer).
The current tank is a 55g I call guppyland. It has 2 each sterbai, albino, and pand cories, 1 albino BN pleco, 1 8-9" common pleco, 2 black skirt tetras about 2.5" each, 2 giant almost 3" amano shrimp, and between 10-30 adult guppies depending on the week. The tetras and plecos where the first fish I bought, have changed tanks, substrates, been moved and are fine. The cories went in in Nov when I got the 55 and they have all flourished. I realize this is probably too many fish, but my tank maintenance is immaculate and water perameters are excellent. I have a fluval/aquaclear 110 w/ prefilter and extra bio media, temp is 78 degrees steady. I do 20-40 percent wc every 7-10 days depending on how much water it takes to clean gravel. Nitrates never higher than 20 and stay at about 5-10, even after wc, ammonia/nitrate is 0 measurable always, ph is solid 7.0, gh is 30 kh 80(based on API test strips, everything else tested with different strips and API master test kit all read same so seems accurate).
Fry go into a 10g growout tank if they survive a day for us to catch them. We get about 10/week, maybe 2-3 survive the 10g long enough to go back in the big tank, brokenbacks and bland males get traded to the lfs. That's on average, sometimes its a lot more, sometimes less. Generally we breed 1 for every 3 we lose, and we try to switch out females to avoid in-breeding. This means constantly buying/trading new fish, which is cool for the dynamic of the tank changing, but we've had several spectacular ones and those seem to be the first to die off.
I feed once a day, about an hour before lights off(only time my schedule permits) , I do 2-3 big pinches of omega1 flake, 2 algea wafers and a few bottom feeder tabs. Seems like a lot of flake to me but it's all gone within 30-45 seconds and none hits the substrate, the guppies also swarm the wafers and other fish have to fight for their share. I also add 2 slices of zucchini/cucumber twice a week which seems to be equally shared.
About a month ago I switched out the fake plants and décor and what I call disco gravel (bright blue w/ neon pink and green, came with my first tank) for local river gravel and some live plants. Then added a giant piece of driftwood, halved the tank with sand, and added a bunch of live plants and upped lighting with a 2 bulb shop light. Floating anacharis in half the tank and water lettuce everywhere but the filter outflow, anubias all over the DW, jungle val, crypts, and java moss clump to hide fry.
Thought all this would improve survival rate, but quite the opposite. Don't know if its all the changes or somethings not right. We've been losing 2-4 guppies everyday. Now once I changed the tank my wife we crazy and got tons of new guppies, maybe 15. I wasn't shocked to see lots of deaths at first, but acclimation should be fine now and death rate is crazy still. She pointed out that the dead ones all have no tails except just horizontal spines. I don't get to watch the tank much, though I've never seen any aggression. Our babysitter said she saw the tetras chasing guppies, but they've been in there from the beginning and that I've never seen. LFS guy suggested maybe the plecos sucking tails off at night, but again I've never seen any signs of this.
Wow, that got long winded, sorry. It all comes down to 2 questions, is it my tank/aggression/overstocking, or are guppies just going to die every 2-3 months because of breeding stock? My favorite LFS is actually a "fish rescue" and they would gladly take my black skirts and/or my pleco and sell them to someone with the right tank. But as they were our first fish we've become somewhat attached and would hate to see them go if it doesn't help matters. Any Advice is appreciated.
The current tank is a 55g I call guppyland. It has 2 each sterbai, albino, and pand cories, 1 albino BN pleco, 1 8-9" common pleco, 2 black skirt tetras about 2.5" each, 2 giant almost 3" amano shrimp, and between 10-30 adult guppies depending on the week. The tetras and plecos where the first fish I bought, have changed tanks, substrates, been moved and are fine. The cories went in in Nov when I got the 55 and they have all flourished. I realize this is probably too many fish, but my tank maintenance is immaculate and water perameters are excellent. I have a fluval/aquaclear 110 w/ prefilter and extra bio media, temp is 78 degrees steady. I do 20-40 percent wc every 7-10 days depending on how much water it takes to clean gravel. Nitrates never higher than 20 and stay at about 5-10, even after wc, ammonia/nitrate is 0 measurable always, ph is solid 7.0, gh is 30 kh 80(based on API test strips, everything else tested with different strips and API master test kit all read same so seems accurate).
Fry go into a 10g growout tank if they survive a day for us to catch them. We get about 10/week, maybe 2-3 survive the 10g long enough to go back in the big tank, brokenbacks and bland males get traded to the lfs. That's on average, sometimes its a lot more, sometimes less. Generally we breed 1 for every 3 we lose, and we try to switch out females to avoid in-breeding. This means constantly buying/trading new fish, which is cool for the dynamic of the tank changing, but we've had several spectacular ones and those seem to be the first to die off.
I feed once a day, about an hour before lights off(only time my schedule permits) , I do 2-3 big pinches of omega1 flake, 2 algea wafers and a few bottom feeder tabs. Seems like a lot of flake to me but it's all gone within 30-45 seconds and none hits the substrate, the guppies also swarm the wafers and other fish have to fight for their share. I also add 2 slices of zucchini/cucumber twice a week which seems to be equally shared.
About a month ago I switched out the fake plants and décor and what I call disco gravel (bright blue w/ neon pink and green, came with my first tank) for local river gravel and some live plants. Then added a giant piece of driftwood, halved the tank with sand, and added a bunch of live plants and upped lighting with a 2 bulb shop light. Floating anacharis in half the tank and water lettuce everywhere but the filter outflow, anubias all over the DW, jungle val, crypts, and java moss clump to hide fry.
Thought all this would improve survival rate, but quite the opposite. Don't know if its all the changes or somethings not right. We've been losing 2-4 guppies everyday. Now once I changed the tank my wife we crazy and got tons of new guppies, maybe 15. I wasn't shocked to see lots of deaths at first, but acclimation should be fine now and death rate is crazy still. She pointed out that the dead ones all have no tails except just horizontal spines. I don't get to watch the tank much, though I've never seen any aggression. Our babysitter said she saw the tetras chasing guppies, but they've been in there from the beginning and that I've never seen. LFS guy suggested maybe the plecos sucking tails off at night, but again I've never seen any signs of this.
Wow, that got long winded, sorry. It all comes down to 2 questions, is it my tank/aggression/overstocking, or are guppies just going to die every 2-3 months because of breeding stock? My favorite LFS is actually a "fish rescue" and they would gladly take my black skirts and/or my pleco and sell them to someone with the right tank. But as they were our first fish we've become somewhat attached and would hate to see them go if it doesn't help matters. Any Advice is appreciated.
