Pregnant Guppy in breeder box

[Marvelous]

Ok so I have been watching my guppy for about a week now. I think she is finally ready to give birth. In the past couple days she has been hanging around the heater off and on. So I put her into one of those plastic breeder boxes and shes been in there since last night. My question is, how long can she remain in the breeder box before it starts affecting her health? I dont want to make her sick and die on me but I dont really want to move her back into the tank until she gives birth. Any ideas?

Thanks
Marv

 

[enadeau12]

For whoever replies to this, could I do the same with a kribensis

 

[joy13]

Kribensis are egg layers so it won't work that way.

The guppies I have are in a species only planted tank and I don't use a breeder box since I find it usually ends ups stressing out the female and they will hold the babies longer. What type of fish do you have with your guppies?

 

[Marvelous]

types of fish with guppies

I only have 2 female guppies a cory cat and a ghost shrimp in a 10g tank. I have a sponge filter that is too big (for a 35g) and a cool rock that I put in the middle I found out in my grandmas pasture. I planted some of those "top fin live plant bulbs" that you can buy at petco, they have been in there for about 2 weeks now but so far no sign of any growth, so I have no plants in there as of now. And of course some gravel.

 

[joy13]

The fish you have will probably not eat the babies if they have a few hiding places. I know my females don't eat the fry or if they do they have so many I don't notice.

 

[Marvelous]

Hiding places

Well as soon as these bulbs start to grow I'll try to let them birth naturally, but both of my females have had babies at least once while ive had them and Im pretty sure they ate them all. I was just wondering how long i could keep her in the breeder box before it started to hurt her.

 

[joy13]

It would depend on the individual fish but maybe a couple of days.
Even catching a fish in a net can cause enough stress to make her hold the fry. My females aren't interested at all in the fry they will chase them for a moment and stop. One thing about those breeder boxes is that the fry will swim around and the female will eat them. Hornwort is a very good plant to protect fry.

 

[Marvelous]

Horwort

Ok thanks ill check that out.

 

[Marvelous]

Hornwort (cont)

That looks like a good plant to kep the fry to hide in. How hard is it to keep alive? Such as, type of lighting, how much light you give them each day, and whether you add anything else, like flourish or something? Im pretty new to the game. Any info is appreciated.

Thanks
Marv

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Hornwort is a low light plant. I have 16 guppy fry 27 molly fry 1 platy fry 1 recovering female guppy (got picked on in the 55) and 1 preggers pineapple sword in a bare 10g w/sponge filter with about 5 strands of hornwort (fills about 1/3 the tank, floats and sinks) and using an 18" 15W T8 5500K Tropic Sun bulb (in a fixture I used to use on my 55) and it does just fine. Plus it's super cheap so just get a ton of it and dump it in and let it float around. Fry LOVE it.

 

[Marvelous]

Hornwort

Awesome, that sounds perfect. Im going to call my LFS tommorw to have them order some.