I have a few idea in mind but they are ideas from the amateur =) Google has provided very little information about guppy feeders. How can a guppy be sold in the US for $.05 each? Or rather how are those guppies raised? Live foods cheaper than prepared foods?
How are mass quantities of feeders bred?
- Thread starter Smertrios
- Start date
Most feeders sold here in Australia are a byproduct on crayfish farms. They are actually an unwanted pest for the farmer since they thrive in the ideal conditions and steal food the crayfish get. Fish farmers net them out when they drain or harvest a pond and sell them by the kilo.
I know that guppies, if kept outside, can live off of whatever grows or falls into the pond they're in so it's basically like a low to no overhead operation. Also, mosquitos will lay eggs in the ponds and they will feast on the larvae.
Gups take next to no work to grow in pond. In a year you can end up with 1000 if you started with 20. Just some idea of rate of reproduction. These are of course a big mess in a pond near me they pretty much live on the freshwater grasses and plants.
From what I have been reading guppy fry can breed at 1-1/2 to 6 months and the average per female is about 30 every month (I think a more realistic number would be 30 every 1-1/2 to 2 months as this gives some time for recovery after a batch of guppies are delivered).
20 guppies and only 1000? My guess is there was a food shortage, lack of hiding for the fry (cannibalism) or maybe some predators. My math using 30 as the average number of fry delivered, 1 month as a gestation period and 2 months at the time between batches of guppies (per female)... Assuming 10 females
10 female guppies * 6 batches a year * 30 per batch = 1800... if the male:female ratio is kept more in favor of females so that there are 15 females the number increases to 2700 per year. This does not even take into account that many of the babies will have grown enough to start reproducing (at anywhere from 1-1/2 to 6months old)!
I am not sure but I think that with good tank design, floating foods so that the adults are "trained" to look for their sustainance at the water surface and live foods for the young for fast growth that a large "shoal" of guppies could be kept in a relatively small tank to produce mass tank raised guppies... the breeding tanks would only be a fraction of the number of grow out tanks needed I bet =P
I used numbers like 1 guppy per day per female as the average number of babies (knowing they can produce upto 100 per female) and had 20,000 females producing enough guppies that they could be sold for $.02 per and make $200 per day as profit for doing nothing more than just being there to siphon off the daily spawn for transfer to grow out tanks (and feeding, water changes of course)... Not sure there is enough market to support the sale of 20,000+ guppies per day at that price tho. Would prolly take 50,000+ per day to really get me interested! =P
20 guppies and only 1000? My guess is there was a food shortage, lack of hiding for the fry (cannibalism) or maybe some predators. My math using 30 as the average number of fry delivered, 1 month as a gestation period and 2 months at the time between batches of guppies (per female)... Assuming 10 females
10 female guppies * 6 batches a year * 30 per batch = 1800... if the male:female ratio is kept more in favor of females so that there are 15 females the number increases to 2700 per year. This does not even take into account that many of the babies will have grown enough to start reproducing (at anywhere from 1-1/2 to 6months old)!
I am not sure but I think that with good tank design, floating foods so that the adults are "trained" to look for their sustainance at the water surface and live foods for the young for fast growth that a large "shoal" of guppies could be kept in a relatively small tank to produce mass tank raised guppies... the breeding tanks would only be a fraction of the number of grow out tanks needed I bet =P
I used numbers like 1 guppy per day per female as the average number of babies (knowing they can produce upto 100 per female) and had 20,000 females producing enough guppies that they could be sold for $.02 per and make $200 per day as profit for doing nothing more than just being there to siphon off the daily spawn for transfer to grow out tanks (and feeding, water changes of course)... Not sure there is enough market to support the sale of 20,000+ guppies per day at that price tho. Would prolly take 50,000+ per day to really get me interested! =P
1000 was just a number off the top of my head. Convicts are a good feeder choice. Once they hit 1.5", they may wanna breed with your other cichlids. Although I would not feed a 4" convict as a feeder. Just cause its already a decent size.
Maybe it's the same way they do trout and such. Manually extracting eggs from the females, and manually getting the sperm out of males, and then mixing the two in a bucket by hand, for the most fertilized eggs. Just a hunch. I'm not sure if it could be done with such a small fish, but if it can be, I'd be willing to bet this is how it's done. And then somekind of psuedo-incubation period in a special device.
They do that above 1 hour west of me. They breed only Australian Native's and actualkly sedate the female, and male and grab all the eggs and sperm. This ensures 100% supervision and the parents can just put on more weight, then get ready to be eaten. Not having to worry about eggs, babies etc.
I take it your a convict breeder! Any details about growth rates and effects of different dry and live foods on growth and breeding? I am currently getting setup to do a scaled down test of my "feeder guppy farm" capable of producing around 20,000 guppies a day once up and running. My scaled down version will only be producing in theory 200 per day and will take 3 months to a year before edtimates of feasability can be known due to time needed to grow the feeder guppy supply into adults and get enough daily samples of guppy births to be able to calculate averages.
I will be using live foods like rotifers and daphnia for the babies. The adults will be fed flake foods although I may experiment with live foods just to see if it has an effect on the daily average of baby guppies... one thing I dont like about baby guppies is that they are born swimming. May make keeping them in the bottom part of the tank more difficult although they do literally drop like a rock when first born.
I have no grow out tanks at the moment in fact I am still waiting on starter cultures to arrive... but in essence the "mini farm" consists of a 5 tier shelf 6 foot tall with 2x4 foot shelves. On the very top shelf I have a grow light setup to shine down on the shelf below it. The next shelf down from the top is where I will be growing algae in four 10 gallon tanks to feed the rotifers and daphnia growing in another set of four 10 gallon tanks below the algae tanks.
I have 2 more tiers in the shelf where I can put 8 more 10 gallon tanks to experiment with different stocking densities but not sure on how I am going to filter them. The biological load could be huge for a heavily stock breeding tank with 1 adult guppy per square inch! Fluidized bed filters promise a HUGE surface area using nothing more than sand. A good prefilter is an absolute must since the sand seems static and could clog.
I will be using live foods like rotifers and daphnia for the babies. The adults will be fed flake foods although I may experiment with live foods just to see if it has an effect on the daily average of baby guppies... one thing I dont like about baby guppies is that they are born swimming. May make keeping them in the bottom part of the tank more difficult although they do literally drop like a rock when first born.
I have no grow out tanks at the moment in fact I am still waiting on starter cultures to arrive... but in essence the "mini farm" consists of a 5 tier shelf 6 foot tall with 2x4 foot shelves. On the very top shelf I have a grow light setup to shine down on the shelf below it. The next shelf down from the top is where I will be growing algae in four 10 gallon tanks to feed the rotifers and daphnia growing in another set of four 10 gallon tanks below the algae tanks.
I have 2 more tiers in the shelf where I can put 8 more 10 gallon tanks to experiment with different stocking densities but not sure on how I am going to filter them. The biological load could be huge for a heavily stock breeding tank with 1 adult guppy per square inch! Fluidized bed filters promise a HUGE surface area using nothing more than sand. A good prefilter is an absolute must since the sand seems static and could clog.
