Gupies

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Sitchy

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 16, 2007
Messages
27
Location
Northampton, England
I'm thinking about breading guppies and I was wondering if guppies eat there own fry? And what is a good size aquarium to breed guppies in?
 
I have 2 10g and 1 2.5 g for breeding guppies. 1 10g holds the parents the 2.5 hold the newborns, and the other 10g holds the guppies that got too big (i breed them for feeders for my cichlids).

Guppies will eat their own fry, so If you want the babies to survive, I would move them to another tank. For the first few minute after giving birth, they will be fine, but once the mother recovers, her babies will become dinner.

I have had the best sucess using breeders boxes (with the two sperate compartments, one for the mother, one for the fry). I will put the female in about a week for so before she gives birth. I have used the nets before, but the only reason (i'm sure) that she didn't eat the fry is because I was there when she went into labor, and was able to pull out the babies as they were being born.

Newborn babies will eat finely crushed flake food and BBS for the first few months of their lives, after about 2-4 weeks, they can also eat frozen or live daphnia.

HTH, if you have any other questions, i can probably help.
 
np man. Good luck!!

Out of curiosity, are you breeding for feeders, or trade in value at your lfs?
 
I love fish and I have a friend who has just started to breed mollies. If I'm over run by fry I will use some to feed my Salvini, but mainly I just think it would be fun to do.

Haven't thought about lfs value really are they worth anything?
 
less that $1 ea at my lfs. I originally was breeding for value, but in talking to hubby about it, eventually they will probably no longer take them (with how fast they breed). SO we decided to start feeding the fry to our cichlids. Strangly enough, if we only put 4-5 in the tank, the austrailian rainbows eat them before the cichlids even have time to think about it.

You will quickly become overrun if you keep all of the babies. YOu will be less likely to be over run if you let the mother give birth in the tank with the rest of the fish. I had actually considered keeping a male and female in the tank with my cichlids and just let her give birth in that tank, but I would worry to much about the wellbeing of the guppies with the cichlids, so they got their own tank.

You will have fun with it, hopefully you can actually witness her giving birth. That is something on its own. Most of the babies will immediatly start swimming around right after coming out of the mother. Its cool to watch.
 
I'll ask my lfs when i next go never thought about selling them. sounds like a lot of fun. I cant waite to get it all set up.

Seeing as your experienced with this can you give me a quick tip on how to quickly sex a guppy? My lfs doesn't separate them as far as i know, or they just don't have females stocked.
 
Note the differences in the fins (both dorsal and anal), and the pointy thing in the anal fins of the male. Also, body size, and shape varies (females are generally larger, and much rounder in the bellies). Females will most likely have a gravid spot (dark spot right by the anal fins. It is literally the eyes of the fry. The darker the spot, the farther along she is). If you purchase a female from the lfs, most likely, she will already be pregnant.

Female
fe_guppy_s.jpg


Male
multicolor_gup_s.jpg


*pictures were taken off animal-world.com*
 
I have got my tank, it is a 13 gallon so plenty of room. I'm just waiting a bit now before i get my guppies. Just wanted to say thank you for your help and I'll post when I'm succesful :D
 
np man, I will be looking for your post...they're guppies, after all. You will most likely be successful.
 
i have a 17gal guppy tank which has got about 12 adults and about 20 babies. i have a lot of fine-leafed plants like ambulia and a java moss wall on the back with plenty of places for fry to hide, and i actually don't think we've lost any yet. when the babies get to about 1cm they start swimming around with the adults and don't get given a second glance, let alone become lunch.
 
i think guppies can breed even in a small space..However i would suggest a 5 gal tank and above and planted with many floating plants so that the fry can dodge their parents.Good luck
 
awesome!! Good job. They must be eating most of them if you only have 5 total from two births. My last batch of babies was 24 from one mother. I got to watch her give birth, and so I got to seperate them before she could eat them. She had about 7-10 stillborns not included in the 24 I am talking about. She had over 30 fry. She has since died, and she was my only female, so I am waiting for her first birth to finish growing so I can start breeding again.
 
I wouldn't be supprised if they had my guppies seem to have bottomless stomachs.
When will my guppy fry be big enough to survive with the adults? I don't want to put them back in too early and have them all eaten.
 
I put mine with the adults at 1/2" from nose to base of tailfin. I wouldn't put them together any smaller than that. If the adults don't eat them, they will still try, which could still kill them or leave them horribly disformed. They are about 3/4" now, and starting to show some cool colors :D My second batch doesn't exhist, they all got eaten by the evil austrailian rainbows.

I am actually going to take in some of my males, I have too many (around 10-12), and since I am really only breeding fro food purposes, I only need 1-2 males to keep the girls pregnant. That is, until they die, then I will grow out another batch of fry and keep 1-2 of the males.

This all sounds so corrupt, yet I can talk about it so calmly, go figure. *and I'm a girl*
 
It must be just me then that struggles to keep males. I have had 4 males 3 of which have died and i havn't lost a single female i cant explain it i buy the healthiest looking. They are fine for about the first hour when i introduce them into the tank but then there condition deteriates and before long there dead. :(

How can I tell for sure that my female is going to give birth?
 
she will become kind of square shaped, and her breeding tube will start to show a little bit. She will be black by her "opening", and she will start breathing heavy, and start hiding. I would not recommend moving her during or right before labor. I usually move mine when I notice that they are starting to get real fat, and the gravid spot is really dark. That way, she has time to get comfortable enough before she goes into labor. Average gestation period is about a month.
 
I think i have another female due shortly then.

Something I have noticed is that one of my guppies gravid spots is a blood red, is this normal? and my guppies gravid spots shrink overnight and then gradually get bigger, what is that about?
 
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