there is no possible way for a female fry to obtain sperm in the mother, the crust of the egg shatters as the fry is coming out and not whilst inside the mother, the crust is also designed to be strong enough to stop anything getting in to harm the unborn fry. sorry to sound so blunt but its just not possible

I have a question: my guppy recently gave birth to 30 fry. Some of the fry looked more developed and larger, at least a week older, but were all the same age. They were born with gravid spots, a few of them. When is a female able to become pregnant? I have a few older fry who are now in the adult's tank and are beginning to get color. they now have dark gravid spots and I'm wondering if they could be pregnant. Their brother often messes with them anyway.

Usually females are mature enough to get pregnant at 3months old, sometimes a little younger. You should separate the females from any males in the tank which are related to them to help prevent inbreeding amoungst them- the more you let each generation inbreed with each other, the weaker the resulting fry from such unions will become.

Inbreeding is a dangerous thing in guppys, it does nothing positive for them at all. Inbreeding can result in guppys with poorer imune systems and growth (both eventual size and how long they take to attain it) and increases the chances of poorer, smaller and weaker batches of fry being born, and the chances of fry being born with bad birth deformities- inbred mature females also have a higher risk of suffering from birthing complications etc.
There are basically many negative ways inbreeding can affect guppys, so you should try to avoid it at all costs whenever posible. Even if your females are not mature enough to get pregnant, to be on the safe side you should remove any young males amoungst them as soon as the males become evident in the group.

Guppys used to be a very hardy type fish in general in the earlier days of fishkeeping, but now they have a reputation for becomming increasingly more weak/fragile as time goes by, the reason for this is due to inbreeding in guppys. When breeders are trying to create new strains of guppys like new tail types/finnages and colours etc, it is a lot easier to come up with such new strains if you inbreed the guppys together. So as time has gone by, guppys have become more and more inbred because of the breeders doing such things like trying to create new strains etc.
The reason why the guppys themselves show no real objection to inbreeding amoungst each other is partly because of their high sex drives, but also because in the wild, wild guppys would exist in very large bodies of water (often going into the thousands of gallons) and in very large numbers themselves. The chances of a single guppy finding a sibling in such an environment is rather slim, so it is generally not an issue for wild guppys and so they have never really evolved to have any instincts not to breed with their siblings or parents etc. So basically it is up to you to stop such things from happening in your tank, as a responsable guppy breeder, preventing inbreeding in your guppys should become one of your top priorities .

how old should the fry be to go with the adults they more than a month old almost two.

--------- that is the length of my 2 month fries is that big enough to go to adults?

This post has been edited by na9la: Jun 26 2007, 01:40 PM

At two months old they should be absolutely fine with the adult guppys in the tank, adult guppys will only try to eat fry which are small enough to be caught with ease and swallowed whole, when the fry are too large to be swallowed whole by the adults the adult guppys will stop trying to eat them- its mostly fry which are 2-3weeks or less old who are at the most risk of this happening, at 2months old they will be more than large enough not to get eaten by the adult guppys .

great thx! ill put them in this weekend they already eating flakes so they are perfect

when the 2nd batch was born looking at him i saw one get eaten in myvery own eyes

excellent topic.

def pinned

thanks a bunch. So you dont know anything about the fry born with gravid spots and much larger?

I have just been told that when she has babies they eat them is that true
and what do u do to keep them

No-one seems to really know what the false gravid spots are in juvenile virgin female guppys or what they are caused by, however personally i believe they are Phantom Pregnancy symptoms and nothing more- at least this is the most plausible explanation i have seen so far.




If you read the thread through properly it will answer your questions.
..."Sigh"...Make sure the tank has some heavily planted area's (preferably with plants that have lots of dense fine leaves), the fry will instinctively hide in planted areas when they are born. A certain percentage of fry will probably get eaten, this is normal/natural (and is one of the ways the mother weeds out the weaklings in the fry from the start to give the strong ones a better chance at survival), however what number of fry get eaten varies enormously- none may get eaten, half may get eaten, all may get eaten etc...A lot also depends on the other types of fish you have in the tank- guppys are not particularly avid fry-eaters in general in comparison to a lot of fish in the hobby, but fish like angelfish are etc...
There is tons of info in other pinned articles in this section on raising fry and similar topics if you look for them, they are not hard to find.

The gravid spot is a black lineing to the body cavity this is always there, it's just in some fish it more visible then others

I have one 10 gallon with a heater and filter. I also have 2 pregnant females, and 1 male. During the birthing is it okay if I transfer the male and female that are not delivering into another 2 gallon? The 2 gallong does not have a heater or filter. (I used it for my bettas) How long can they go without heater and filter? Is it better just to leave all fish in the tank while she is delivering? And what is better, live plants, or fake ones (for young fry)? I have 2 fake at the moment. Is that sufficient?

to the folks on about been pregnent whilst not been near any male, it is known that the female fry can store sperm of the father! and use it to give birth!



and for post above get some nice thick live plants! most lfs will tell ya which ones to get, i havabout 8 plants close together in one corner of the tank, like a little forest effect! only thing is all my fish seem to want to be there at the same time lol

Its best to leave them all in the same tank, as long as the male is not overly harrassing the heavily pregnant female, she'll be fine . The 2gal tank would probably be too stressful for the other guppys either way with no heating or filtration. It doesn't matter is the plants are live or fake as long as they have lots of fine densely packed small leaves to offer good cover for the fry to hide in, live plants can often be better though as they can help lower nitrate levels in the tank and often offer better cover .

Hi Everyone,

I am totally new at having fish and I feel like an idiot. From reading this I believe my three female fish are pregnant, but I am not sure. I have a female mickey, a female golden platty and a silver guppy. I think there spots are dark, but I am just not sure. I was hoping to send some pics, but my uploads keep failing. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and why my pics won't go through. I think the silver guppy is going to be having her fry very soon, she is barely swimming around and staying at the bottom in the plants. My question is the males will not leave her alone and are constantly chasing her, is this bad for her? My kids really want me to try and save the babies, can anyone give me a heads up on what the best thing to do is?

Thank you so much,
Confused

upload your pictures to PHOTOBUCKET then copy and paste the I M G tag into your reply box. as for the female, is there anyway you ca seperte her? maybe go out buy a breeder net/box (net is both bigger and cheaper) pop her in it and give her a few days HTH

thanks for the pictures they helped a lot!