Guppies - How long to grow?

Just had some baby guppy fry appear in my 10 gallon last night. I bought the guppies last weekend. Not sure what kind they are, i'm assuming they are common fancytail guppies. Anyways, I was wondering how long it would take the fry to grow so I could see what their tail patterns looked like on the males. I currently have about 5 fry as of now. Many more to come by the looks of the 2 pregnant females.
TIA
-Stewie

[Regen311]

My sister's guppies had babies in August. I have 4 of them, she has between 6 and 8, and she gave the rest away. For the first few months, they all looked the same. We couldn't even tell the males and females apart. The babies were born in late August, and probably about a month ago, we started to see more color on the fish. So it took a few months. I don't know if that's usual though or if our fish were just freaks

So basically september till the end of jan is how long it took.. roughly 5 months.. Ok, now I know how long i'll have to wait to find their colors. Thanks for the reply regen311.
-Stewie

[Liggs17]

Stewie,

To get my guppy fry to grow faster I've found that raising the temperature of the tank to around 80 degrees plus feeding them microworms helped a great deal. I have read online (don't remember where) that this can shorten the lifespan of the guppies as it supposedly puts their metabolism in fast-forward. Quite frankly, I'm not sure if this is a legitimate concern, but it does bear consideration.

Liggs

Liggs, Thanks for the helpful reply. I'm not sure if I want to go this route or not. They seem to be eating just fine as of now. When I feed the guppies, i give them flakes of food, and then finely crush some up so my fry can eat that. The 5 I have right now are eating just fine and seem to be really healthy. I'm just waiting for the other baby guppies to come along. The one female is sooo big I just can not believe it. I've never seen a pregnant livebearer that big for that small of fish. Time will only tell how many babies i'm going to end up with. I think I might take my 2 females and male back to a lfs and just raise the fry that they have. I'll probably end up with 30 + fry in a 10 gallon tank. As they grow and develop colors, i'll take the ones I don't want to a lfs. Even if I get a little store credit or something for them, it will be useful to me
-Stewie

[aquazen]

I keep my guppies in 72-74 water. I'm my 6 months of fancy guppy experience (hehe, seems like a drop in a bucket compared to most people here), I can honestly say that you can sex them by about 4-6 weeks. The males will look more slender and more aerodynamic, like the shape of an airplane wing (looking from the side). The females will look kinda chubby. They also get a bit bigger.

Noticable color starts appearing right around 6-8 weeks. The fins keep growing and become obviously large at around 12 weeks. My guppy keeps having fry every month like clockwork. Running out of space. Maybe I should start eating 'em with a shot of tequilla? ;P

Try and trade them in at a lfs aquazen. I figured it to be like this - If i'm going to keep/raise the guppies, i'll keep the prettiest ones and then since im already spending money on them for food and such, a few extra flakes to feed the fry doesn't add up to that much. Even if a lfs gives you 25 cents a piece for them or something (that would be awful low considering my one lfs sells the males for 2.99 and the females for 1.99, but the are very pretty guppies imo) say you'd even take 16 - 20 of them back to the lfs, that would get you a decent size can of fish food for nothing, which could be used to feed the fish and raise more!

[aquazen]

I've thought about that. But with gas prices as they are now adays (I have to drive 30 minutes to get to the closest LFS), it wouldn't be worth it. I'm thinking about just letting the gourami and goldfish loose on them. At least they will provide a substantial amount of protein!

But I can't in good conscience do it. I guess I'll have to let them all get a bit bigger to where I can sex them and see the finnage. I'll trade the females in for some ghost shrimp I guess. I could always use more of those guys.

Thats what I'm planning on doing myself (although probably not for ghost shrimp). I'm going to wait until they are older, sex them, take some of the females back along with the males that I don't think have pretty tails. Eventually as they start breeding i'll have to be really picky on the ones I'll want to keep because not that much room for guppies in a heavily planted 10 gallon tank. But then again, the more fish I have, the more fish I take back = The more store credit I get.
-Stewie

[honmol]

I want to trade lots of my guppies in for some cories and ottos. Any other small friendly hardy, easy to breed fish (not livebearers) that you can think of?

[rubysoho]

Don't feel too bad about the fry if you want to use them as a source of live food. It is nature's way AND not all of them will be eaten so you'll know the best survive. Gouramis and fancy goldfish are slower fish so the fry do have a chance. If you have the more streamline goldfish like shubunkins, comets, etc... well, those are faster, but just add some plant cover and the strongest/smartest will survive.