Guppies, guppies everywhere...

[bada]

My boyfriend and I have been talking about breeding guppies for his oscars to eat. Yesterday we went to the LFS and picked 3 females and 2 males. We got them home and put them in a tank that we are cycling for one of his oscars. I noticed that all 3 females were pregnant. One of them looked like it was going to pop, but I figured we would have a few days to a week or that the stress of the move would have made her abort it. So we went in the other room to sit by the fire and I read my book about guppies. (The are really interesting fish..) I came back in to look at the tank and saw a little worm thing swimming on the gravel. It took me all of 10 seconds to realize it was not a worm but a fry! I started yelling "She had a baby!". My bf came running. We counted about 13. It was the funniest thing ever! They were only in the tank for about 2 hours! I doubt they would have any chance if they had stayed at the LFS. It was quite exciting! The only problem is we need to move them out in a week so the oscar can go in... He may get some good eating...

If anyone has any tips on keeping guppies it would be very welcome!

[PK Tester]

I guess that means your feeding guppy fry? if they are fancy guppies I'm not sure you would feed them to oscars. Some advice on guppies if they are feeders...you don't have to do a ton of work. Fancy guppies are fussy and need normal water changes...to encourage breeding when a mother is further along you can change 20% water daily. uhmm I'm sure you know guppies eat their fry. You could use a breeder net to prevent this since your just going to throw the guppies once born in to be consumed.

[angelstiger]

I don't know how big your Oscars are. But even a full grown guppy, would be no more than a snack for mine.

[bada]

We are not feeding the guppy fry that would be way to small. We are going to wait till they are older. They are fancy. I think it would be nice to give them some pretty food. I don't know how nutritious they are, plus they aren't that fast but this his first time with livebearers and I have never kept guppies so we thought we could learn a lot. All the guppies will be living in one 10g tank. So if the rents eat some of the fry that will be ok. We don't want to many of them. I have a breeder net from when I had swordtails awhile ago, so maybe next time we will use that. This time kinda caught us off guard. Also the parents haven't really been trying to eat them. They swim together and don't chance them. Also I think they fry are to big for them to get them into their mouths.

The oscars are about 8 inches. They will not be the only oscar food. But once a week we have been buying goldfish or other small fast fish. We are sick of it. That is why we thought we would try our hand at breeding. Mostly for fun. But thanks for the info!

[PK Tester]

Well I'm not sure you chose the best method of food lol. Fancy guppies are extremely fast when they want to be. For a Fancy guppy to be a reasonable size to be fed to an oscar will take forver. 1 month is the recomened time just to release them from a breeder net so the parents can not eat them. I guarntee you the parents will eventually eat whats in the 10 gal before you get much out of them unless you have plenty of hiding spots. I would say for a guppy to get to an adult stage (full grown) takes from 2-3 months.

[bada]

Right now they are in a 20gal. They have lots of places to hide. It be great if they are fast. The more for the oscars to work for! I have read that it will take them about 5-9 weeks to be full grown, that is fine. They aren't only eating live food! It would just be a once a week thing. To give them something to do...

[KLN]

We have two 10 gallon tanks that are overrun with guppies. They have a lot of greenery in which to hide, and seem to have fry constantly. I don't do anything but feed them.

[bada]

We added some java moss yesterday. Also started to give then some LiveFry drops. I can't believe how much they have grown!

[bada]

I have bad news. The guppy that had a the fry went missing. We couldn't find her for a day. Then last night we found her suck to the filter. Another female was suck with her. So we know have 2 males, one female and 13 fry.

[PK Tester]

I'm sorry to hear that...I bet you got them from a LFS . I have had nothing but bad luck with fancy guppies from LFS. They always die on me. Its depressing. I hope I will eventually get some :-( . Your fry will most likely live for sure (no stresst of moving)

[bada]

Well the guppies are in a "QT tank". We were hoping that we could move them soon. Our hopes aren't up about the fry all living. It would be nice, but we weren't excpeting them to come so soon... So it will be interesting to see how it all works out...