Guppy Breeding

[Elika]

I have a 20 gallon fresh water tank. I have two guppies named Mozelle Azura and Radcliffe Irvin. I now have 40 guppy babies! Does anyone have any advice for me? I feed them pulverized fish flakes and brine shrimp. Will they all survive? Will Radcliffe eat any of them? How many? If there are any fishy people out there, I'd love to hear from you.

[Twisterdog]

Well, here goes:

First of all, yes, the parents will eat some of the babies. A lot of them will be able to hide until they get too big to eat, though.

Secondly, you have a potential problem on your hands. Guppies breed easily and frequently. In a twenty gallon tank, you should have no more than twenty one-inch-long fish, at the very most. You will very likely have more than that just from this one breeding. And, as soon as these babies grow a little, they will all breed ... and so on and so on. That is why guppies have become one of the popular "feeder" fish ... they are cheap and easy to breed.

I personally could not raise fish to sell to a pet store, knowing they will be fed to bigger fish. But, lots of people obviously can do it. If you are not going to raise and sell feeder guppies, then you need to do something, ASAP, or you are going to have major problems when your twenty gallon tank is full of hundreds of guppies, and they all die from disease and overcrowding.

Do you have plain or fancy guppies? Plain guppies are easy to sex, the males have colored spots on them, and the females are solid tan in color. You need to separate the males from the females as soon as possible. If you have fancy guppies, I personally don't know how to sex them, but I'm sure a pet store could help you.

[Elika]

Ok. I put Mozelle and a larger female baby in another tank. I cannot tell whether the rest of the smaller babies are male or female yet. I left Radcliffe with the babies, hoping he would eat some of them. The thing is, Mozelle could be pregnant right now, couldnt she? They are fancy guppies. The males are more colorful and the females are duller with a pregnancy patch. Will the babies breed before I can figure out if they are male or female? I am going to have to get rid of some of them, though, in any case. I will try to sell them to the pet store. Since they are fancy guppies, they will most likely be sold as pets. Thank you so much for your help.

[Twisterdog]

Yes, if they are fancy guppies, they will most likely be sold as pets. And I don't think that fancy guppies breed quite as quickly and frequently as plain guppies, but I'm not entirely sure. I would imagine she could indeed be pregnant again. When I buy guppies, I only buy males. Good luck with your population explosion! :)

[sirrahved]

I can't get my fancy guppies to breed... maybe the female has something wrong with her? Maybe there is too big of an age difference? Actually, I have two males. Could this be the problem?

[Erika]

It was awhile before Mozelle had babies. How long have you had them? I think Radcliffe and Mozelle were together for a month before the fry popped out. I don't know anything about the two males being the problem.