Fry are maturing

So I bought my 29 gallon tank. The idea is to use this as the main storage for all my guppies. I bought a tank divider, so I essentially have two 15-gallon High tanks in one unit...one side for each sex. I filled it with water (including some water from the other tanks, to start the nitrate process) and a sponge filter and started it cycling. The fry are like miniature adults now, except for their color. They are active and habituated to my hand, so they dont run or hide when I feed them.

I got some black marine sand (very fine, but not as fine as silt) because I thought it would look cool. And it does. But I wasnt prepared for the problems it causes. It has pretty much ruined my power filter. If you ever put sand in a tank make sure you leave your filter off until the sand has settled...it gets into the moving parts of the filter and interferes with their movement, making the filter useless. It also has an annoying tendency to clot around air bubbles, giving it a messy appearance. After an hour or so of stirring it I got most of the bubbles out, and it looks like normal sand.

I rinsed it out and have got it working again, but I think it is permanently damaged. It was a Penguin bio-wheel filter, so it wasnt cheap. Live and learn I guess.

My snails are actually reproducing finally...I have about 5 or 6 apple snails, and I have been trying to breed them as well. I have a single giant Ramshorn snail in my goldfish tank...it's the only one I have found in any pet store so far and I'd love to breed it and get more. I have been told it is a species of Apple Snail, but I have not seen it attempt to mate with any of the other Apple Snails yet.

But all that is growing in the tank are the Pond snails (which arent very useful, and visually unappealing because they only grow to about a centimeter and are a dull brown color). Pond snails reproduce VERY fast, so they are infesting my tanks like little lice. I've begun picking them out by hand to thin their numebrs...I wish I had something that would eat them.

But anyway, in the process of doing this I came across two snails that didnt look like the others. They have vertical (flat) shell spirals of Apple Snails instead of the cone-shaped shells of the Ramshorn snails. So far I have only found two, but they are pretty cool colors too. One of them is already bigger than the adult Ranshorn snails in the tank.

I have been doing the same extermination process in my work tank. Where, unfortunately, the guppy holocaust continues. I lost another two females over the weekend, and am about to lose one of the yellow males. Keeping females alive is apparently really really hard.

The First Guppy Holocaust

Well I suppose it had to happen. I had my first mass extinction because I didnt pay attention to the water chemistry in my 5.5 gallon tank at home.

My 10 gallon goldfish tank is almost completely self sufficient...it is fully cycled and had so many plants that they eat all the pollutants in the tank. So Ammonia and nitrate levels are zero, and nitrite levels are low, despite the fact that I rarely do water changes. The fish are very active and seem happy. The plants and snails maintain the water quality for me and the water is always crystal clear.

I made the assumption that I could do the same thing in my guppy tank as well. That it would in fact be easier because guppies only pollute the water a fraction as much as the much messier goldfish. I was wrong.

I think my main miscalculation was putting too much fertilizer in the tankfor the plants. I didnt do water changes often, And I think I may have fed them too much. Also I dont have an undergravel filter because the tank is so small, just a sponge filter.

So anyway, three of them died off, including two pregnant females. There are four survivors, all males. They were lethargic and hanging out at the top of the water, depite the fact that the water was well oxygenated (which is never a good sign). I did a 75% water change, re-salted, and added a much more appropriate amount of fertilizer. The fish are clearly stressed (and I see ammonia burns on their fins), but the effect was almost immediate. They began swimming around normally. They still "rested" at the top or bottom of the tank periodically, but they were a lot more active.

So thats my lesson for this month....pay attention to water changes. They are important even if your fish dont seem to be affected. The females died overnight with no signs of distress and no warning.

The Fry in the nursery tank are doing well. As far as I can tell, I havnt lost any of them. They are all active and growing, and most can be sexed. Baby Brine Shrimp were an ideal food for them...not only are they small enough for even newborns to eat, but they stimulate predatory behavior and make the fry swim around (exercise). I am now supplementing with flake food.

I am buying a 29 gallon tank this weekend, and will use it with a divider to separate the sexes. I plan on making it my main planted tank for now on, and as soon as the fry are big enough not to get eaten by adults, I will start moving them over and separating them once the tank has cycled for a few days. I will be using water from my goldfish tank to jump-start the nitrate cycle.

Getting a little worried about my 6.6 gallon desk tank at work...I have six guppies in it and three of them swim around normally, but the other four are displaying teh same lethargic behavior I saw in my 5.5 gallon at home. I thought oxygenation might be a problem, so I added a bubble wall to supplement the power filter (no undergravel filter in this tank either). That and a water change helped, but they still "rest" at the top of the tank a lot. I dont know...maybe this is normal behavior. But I am not sure what else I can do.

I bought three ghost shrimp...I am experimenting with them as a supplement to the snails to clean the uneaten food, fish crap, and (maybe) algea in the tank. Not sure if they are helping anything, but they are kinda cool to watch either way. I have been told they breed fairly easily as well.

Would you like Frys with that?

It didnt take long...the yellow-tailed female pooped out some babies this morning.

She is one of two females in my five gallon home tank. Wow, those things are kinda big. I watched her give birth to one...the babies are bigger than you'd think. It looked similar a human woman giving birth to a beachball. And it wasnt quick...beginning to end one birth (at least the one I saw) took about 20 minutes. From what I could see she only dropped about 7 or 8 fry total, which is actually pretty small. Adult females will typically drop 40 or 50 fry at once.

My 5 gallon tank has lots of live plants to hide in, so the fry were able to dodge the adults in the tank well enough. As far as I know none of them fell prey to cannibalism from the adults. But I dont think they were really trying. They would occasionally chase one for a split second, but the fry are quick.

Fortunately I was prepared, and had the nursery tank (a cheap 2 gallon hex setup) cycled and ready. I scooped the fry out and dumped them in the new tank. They hid good...turned out there were about twice as many as I assumed.

I'm trying to feed them crushed flake food, but I didnt anticipate how small their mouths would be. I am not sure if they are actually able to eat it...I see them trying to chew on it but they spit it out. So I am gonna try baby brine shrimp. I bought a small kit for $10 and started them up. Supposedly they hatch in one to three days. I'll keep trying flake food until then.

Genesis - Week One

I decided to get into guppies mainly because they are cheap, they are reasonably attractive fish, and they breed very very fast (so I get to play god with their genetics). After spending a day online giving myself a brief education on guppies, I got started.

I bought a small five gallon glass aquarium and set it up with black gravel, a sponge filter, and lots of live plants. I filled it with water from my goldfish tank which was already dechlorinated and fully cycled to get the biological filter a head start. The water was salted with aquarium salt (one tablespoon per five gallons...the normal amount for freshwater). I've read guppies can handle salt in a way similar to goldfish. So I try to keep the water chemistry the same for all tanks. I cycled it for about 4 days before I bought the fish.

I put six guppies (two trios) in it. I picked three half-black males and three yellow/blue females. At least I thought they were females. I assumed they were females because they were smaller and didnt have the draping delta-like finnage of the half-blacks. Apparently they were actually all males. Lesson One; the females are distinguishable because their coloration is more boring. If you have all colorful fish, you probably have all males. My theory was confirmed when I bought a single female the next day (this time I confirmed with the pet store guy to make sure). I put her in the tank.

All six males immediately swarmed her. At first I thought they were attacking, but all they did was follow her around. After reading a bit more online I discovered that if I had left her in there, they would have harass her to exhaustion and she'd have died. Lesson Two; guppies are extremely horny fish and you should never put a single female in with multiple males. So I took her out and dumped her in my goldfish tank temporarily, where she lived for the next couple days till I got more females (the tank has three Bubble-eyes and a Lionhead, all juveniles about 1.5" long...and she was large enough that they didnt bother her).

Obviously the tank is getting a little cramped at this time, so I decided to buy a tank for my desk at work too. I picked up a 6.6 gallon long acrylic setup which was actually pretty nice for $50. Came with everything I needed to get started (power filter, hood, florescent light). I also bought several live plants and more black gravel. I like black gravel.

I set it up and cycled it for 24 hours (I was in a hurry), then bought 4 males (orange/red/yellow mixes) and put them in. I also migrated two of the half-blacks to the work tank as well. The next day I bought four more females and put them in to the work tank as well. I took two of them home to the 5 gallon tank (which was now housing only four males...one half black and three blue/yellows that I had throught were females) and put them in with the first female from my goldfish tank.

As expected the males started chasing them, but they provided distractions for each other, so the harassment died down after a while. So far as I can tell both groups of fish seem fine so far. They are all active.

No obvious signs of stress, no infections or anything. At least two of the females look pregnant, and one of them (in the home tank) looks VERY pregnant, and will probably pop any day now. So I went out and bought yet another tank (2 gallon hex acrylic) and started cycling it in anticipation of using it as a nursery, since I read that guppies will readily cannibalize their young.

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My Knowledge Base - Guppy Breeding

This post documents what I have learned about breeding guppies so far:


Guppies are very very easy to breed

Apparently too easy...two of my females arrived at home already pregnant. The females (even the pregnant ones) were immediately harassed by the males as soon as they entered the tank. Needless to say this kind of takes the first generation results out of my control, since I am unwilling kill all of the first generation offspring.

Females can store sperm for future use, which gives the illusion of "virgin" births even when no males are kept in their tank. A female can use stored sperm to impregnate herself as much as six times before she runs out


Guppies are prolific and grow fast

Baby guppies are referred to as "fry".

Guppies can be impregnated as early as 3 weeks of age, so males and females need to be separated by this time to avoid accidental impregnation.

Gestation is typically around 30 days, so a newborn guppy can begin giving birth at less than two months of age. Labor is between 1 and 12 hours, though stress can cause the mother to re-absorb them in the womb or to stop giving birth altogether. Guppies can be re-impregnated immediately after giving birth.

A fully grown adult female will typically give birth to between 2 and 30 offspring but large females can give birth to 100 or more. The fry are small...between 1/2 and 1 centimeter long. The mother will birth them one at a time. The fry are born fully formed, and look like miniature versions of the adults. They swim in fast but short bursts, and will usually head for available plant cover immediately after birth to avoid the adults, which will readily eat them. This is usually insufficient to prevent losses, so a separate "nursery" tank is probably a better idea.

Guppies reach adult size at about 3 months. Adult size is between 1 and 2 inches. Females are larger than males.


Guppies are horny

Males will continually chase females and in the absence of females will chase each other. If the ratio of males to females is too high, the males could kill the females by not allowing them to rest. For this reason, guppies are typically kept only in pairs (one male and one female) or trios (one male, two females). Or the sexes are kept in entirely separate tanks.

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My Current Tank Setups (Last edited Sept 11 2007)

All of my tanks are salted with the standard "freshwater" levels of aquarium salt. This might be why I have yet to have any disease outbreaks yet. I recommend using aquarium salt for freshwater fish...it enhances gill function and is toxic to parasites like Ick.

10 Gallon (Home Tank) - This one sits on my desk at home, and was the first tank I bought. It houses my favorite fish...four exotic goldfish (an orange Lionhead, Two mottled orange bubble-eyes, and a black bubble-eye). It is a terraced planted tank with an undergravel filter and a powerfilter (witha bio-wheel). It has a glass hood with a flourescent lamp (upgraded the bulb to an "Aqua glo" blue shifted one, which has defenitely helped the plants and makes the fish look better). Almost all the plants are hornwort...it seems to be pretty hardy, grows fast, and has a lush look to it that provides a great backdrop for the fish. I have been told hornwort is excellent for oxygenating the water as well, which may be why the fish seem so active. Snails in the tank keep the glass pretty clean. This is definitely the lowest maintenance of all the tanks I have.

5.5 Gallon (Home Tank) - This was my first Guppy aquarium. It sits on an end table next to my bed. Has a glass hood (no lamp yet....it gets light from a table lamp next to it) and a sponge filter. It is well stocked with a variety of plants, including Java fern and Java moss. It has some minor terracing as well. There are currently four male guppies in it...originally there were seven, but I had a die off recently due to water problems. Before dying one of the females gave birth to about 15 fry, which I "rescued" and put into the nursery tank.

2 Gallon Hex (Home Tank...Fry Nursery) - This is a 2 gallon acrylic hex kit. The only purpose for this tank is as a nursery for fry born in my other tanks, to keep them from being eaten by the adults. Finding a decen florescent light for these things has been impossible, so I just repalced the buld with a blue-shifted one (same vendor..."aquaglo"), and the plants have responded well. I use only the embedded undergravel filter in it, and have added a carbon filter on the outlet as well.

I have a supplementary brine shrimp hatchery I keep next to it.

6.6 Gallon (Work Tank) - I bought this as a desktop-package so I have something to look at at work. It is an acrylic tank and is long...longer than a 10 gallon. It has a bow front and came with a plastic "glass" hood and a florescent lamp (which I havnt upgraded yet), as well as a small power filter. It is fully planted. It currently houses seven guppies (all male except two), two medium size apple snails, about a hundred smaller snails, and three ghost shrimp. One of the females gave birth before dying, and added about six or seven fry to my nursery tank at home.