Just bought guppies, how do I breed them
- Thread starter Justin94565
- Start date
You don't breed guppies, you raise the fry. It's almost impossible to stop them from mating if you've got mixed sexes so rather than focus on how to make them do it your best bet would be to learn how you go about raising the fry successfully.
My suggestion to you would be to ensure you've got a few good growouts with cycled filters. A 5 or 10 gallon is a great place for new born fry. Keep your females in small groups with males and keep the tanks bare bottom. You can easily net out the fry when they drop and transfer them to the small tank. Keep the temp around 80 and the nitrates low. Feed the fry newly hatched brine shrimp as soon as their bellies lose the rounded off appearance that they sometimes have after birth. Continue feeding 4x daily in small portions for the first week or so until you notice substantial growth.
Once the fry have put on some size and appear fit, you can start mixing in a good quality staple finely powdered with their regular food. I usually feed powder in the morning then brine shrimp through the rest of the day. You can slowly cut back on brine shrimp and switch to more of the staple. Feedings can also slowly be reduced to 3 and then 2 times a day as fry grow. Do not move the fry to larger tanks until they have some size on them, I learned the hard way that it will stunt them tremendously.
If you don't have the option of growouts, java moss and rocks are your best bet. Put lots of the stuff in your tank and let the fry fight it out for themselves. You can throw in some live baby brine shrimp and hope some reaches them anyways. Once they're big enough they'll come out and feed with the adults. I like this approach if you're not able to do it on a large scale. It is more fun, and the fry grow at a great rate if birthed in the same water the parents live in, or seems that way to me.
My suggestion to you would be to ensure you've got a few good growouts with cycled filters. A 5 or 10 gallon is a great place for new born fry. Keep your females in small groups with males and keep the tanks bare bottom. You can easily net out the fry when they drop and transfer them to the small tank. Keep the temp around 80 and the nitrates low. Feed the fry newly hatched brine shrimp as soon as their bellies lose the rounded off appearance that they sometimes have after birth. Continue feeding 4x daily in small portions for the first week or so until you notice substantial growth.
Once the fry have put on some size and appear fit, you can start mixing in a good quality staple finely powdered with their regular food. I usually feed powder in the morning then brine shrimp through the rest of the day. You can slowly cut back on brine shrimp and switch to more of the staple. Feedings can also slowly be reduced to 3 and then 2 times a day as fry grow. Do not move the fry to larger tanks until they have some size on them, I learned the hard way that it will stunt them tremendously.
If you don't have the option of growouts, java moss and rocks are your best bet. Put lots of the stuff in your tank and let the fry fight it out for themselves. You can throw in some live baby brine shrimp and hope some reaches them anyways. Once they're big enough they'll come out and feed with the adults. I like this approach if you're not able to do it on a large scale. It is more fun, and the fry grow at a great rate if birthed in the same water the parents live in, or seems that way to me.
Thats very true.. stopping them from breeding is generally harder than getting them to breed
Generally if you put some guppys in a tank, add heaps of java moss or similar, feed them and keep the water quality good you will be over run with guppys in no time
. I had to put a kribensis in my guppy tank to keep the numbers down. 
Brine shrimp are probably the best food, but they will take take finely crushed flake food from birth.
Cheers
Ian
I have gotten guppies all my life till now. I would have a tank set up with allot of plants in the corners for hiding. The color of the guppies is up to you? if the temp of the water is correct and you start with 2 male and 3 female your tank will fill up in no time. You can also have some community fish in with them after you get a nice population. However I must tell you after years of breeding they will get slight deformities I have found guppies with what looks like a broken back (only bc they were so inbred)
Good luck
Good luck
the parents or other adult guppies don't eat the fry??? I've thought about breeding guppies myself,...........
I want to start breeding guppies now!
I'm doing well with breeding turtles, I've been doing this for years.
Now I recently setted up a few fish tanks [with fish instead of turtles!] for once and I have a community of fishies in there.
Some guppies [Male shows interest in female, but she runs away when he pecks her spot] Abunch of Danios [Mixed from Zebra, Leopards, Longfinned, such], Crowntail Betta [Male], 2 Swordtail fish, and a Rubberlip Pleco.
The community seems to be perfect :]
People at the LFS I work at say the Swordtails are very aggressive, but they seem to be more afraid of the Danios then anything!
:] I suppose I will go buy some guppies now haha. [Fancy]
1.50 per Female, and 2.99 per male
This will be a nice project. Hope they don't get eatten.
I'm doing well with breeding turtles, I've been doing this for years.
Now I recently setted up a few fish tanks [with fish instead of turtles!] for once and I have a community of fishies in there.
Some guppies [Male shows interest in female, but she runs away when he pecks her spot] Abunch of Danios [Mixed from Zebra, Leopards, Longfinned, such], Crowntail Betta [Male], 2 Swordtail fish, and a Rubberlip Pleco.
The community seems to be perfect :]
People at the LFS I work at say the Swordtails are very aggressive, but they seem to be more afraid of the Danios then anything!
:] I suppose I will go buy some guppies now haha. [Fancy]
1.50 per Female, and 2.99 per male
This will be a nice project. Hope they don't get eatten.i dont know if its ture but somewhere ive read that females can store enough sperm for 6 batches and can be pregnant at a young age.
They will eat some, but if the tank has plenty of cover and you keep them well fed heaps will survive. After a few days the fry are big and fast enough to avoid being eaten.
I was given a tank and 12 guppys... The tank wasn't even planted
So yeah.. basically just get some guppys and add water
Cheers
Ian
