how to breed guppies

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Unless you're feeding something that only eats like 2 guppies a week you'll empty a 10 gallon in no time. 1m and 3f also won't do much either. If you really want them to be a food source and be constant you'll need a 55+g tank and 200+ guppies to start with. Then you'll have some females that are already about to pop some fry out.

Breeding guppies is easy, breeding them as a constant food source requires a lot more work, time, and space than people realize.

I put 5 in a 5g tank a while back as a kind of experiment, after many months I had 50-75 or so. Most of which were tiny babies still - not even worth feeding to anything. In order to be a decent meal for anything bigger than say a 1.5" baby Pbass you'll need to let them grow for a few months as well.

Oh and you don't need a heater if your house stays fairly warm. Mine bred in 70°ish water without any issue. Having warmer water wouldn't hurt though and may cause them to eat a little more and grow slightly faster. 75° would be fine.
 
i breed my guppies in a 10 gallon 5 females and 2 males lots of plants both in the tank and on top and a 30 gallon filter, each female (mature large females) give me 70-80 maybe more a month, i can get my babies to a half inch (maybe a little less)in about a month..never had run out but then again i have a 3 almost 4 inch Suclpin that only eats a hand full a day on top of the rest of his diet.
but on a small scale it can be done in a 10 gallon i over feed the tank so all the babies get enough food and have snails for clean up.
large 50% water changes a week and a really good cleaning of the substrate once a month..been working for me^_^
 
I have two ten gallon tanks. One pumps water into the other via a pond pump in a cage wrapped in nylon mesh. The water returns from the second tank via a large siphon tube. I have adult livebearers popping babies out on the far left side of the second (left tank). Then there is a barrier of plastic screen from the craft store that fry run through to hide. This places them in the vicinity of the siphon and they soon find themselves in the first tank with no way back to the other side. Without predation or stress, they grow rapidly and are of good feeding size within a week. Perhaps you could try this. Works for me and my bass so far.

Also, a tablespoon of marine salt per ten gallons works wonders on color and growth rate for most livebearers. Little trick I picked up when keeping mollies. Is especially powerful on wild guppy types, aka "feeder" guppies.
 
knifegill;4458442; said:
they grow rapidly and are of good feeding size within a week
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How can you be sure the fry you're feeding were just born a week prior? I know all the guppy fry I've had are almost not even visible when they first pop out. So I find it more or less impossible to think they are "of good feeding size" within a week in your tank.

Unless of course feeding size is like 1/10th of an inch or something...
 
They are platies, so are born a little larger. Bigger than 1/4" long. So in just a few days of grazing on the crazy wild-originated aufwuchs in that tank, they sprout to over half an inch. I've only had two batches so far. Fed the first batch out before the second went in, except for one that I missed. Got him later, though. He was a lot bigger than the new fry for sure.

I have seen a few guppy fry as well, the little wisps. I think they got eaten before the siphon did its thing because I can't scare any up anywhere in either tank.
 
I have a spare 55 gallon now that I would like to set up as a breeder tank for guppies, or platies(now that it was mentioned). I was going to put my pleco's in there(11" common and x2 ~5" chocolate and a spotted high fin), because I wanted to try to add an ossa knife to the tank they are in currently.

A couple questions...

1-will the guppies/platies fry get eaten or harrased by the plecos or will all live in harmony?

2-this is a garage tank room-I can set up another heater, but it does get pretty cold in there during the winter. Will I start loosing fish when the temps drop below 70*? I know the plecos will tolerate it and I will have a 100w heater, but I was originally planning no heat for a guppy breeder tank. Goldfish get too big for the fish I am trying to feed (bichirs) so they are off the menu.

3-are there any cold water feeders that are guppy sized?
 
A Pleco could eat fry easily, even the bigger/mother guppies will eat fry. I have seen them eating baby after baby. You can separate them with dividers or in small containers hung inside the tank. Once the fry are all born in that container or divided area you remove the big female and then all the fry can survive.

I have had Guppies live through power outages where my water temps were in the low 50's for a couple days, maybe even colder as the house was 40's by the end of it. I don't think they would thrive in it long term though.
 
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