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.