Guppy Fry

[CV26]

So after initially trying to be rational about fry (letting nature or the filter takes its course) I ended up spending most of my evening rescuing 8 guppy babies from the filter section of my tank. One in particular was in the most awkward section and didn't even try to assist in its rescue but I won in the end.

Once I'd spotted them I just couldn't ignore them. Im such a push over when it comes to animals.

They are all mooching round happily in the spare tank. Looks like I have 2 boys and 6 girls based on colour alone. Fingers crossed for the coming weeks now I've gone to the effort of saving them.

Guess I've got to make some decisions now for when this happens again. (Breed and pass on, nature or separate out the boys and girls to stop it happening at all)

Do UK pet shops usually take home bred fish? Ive seen a few USA posts which suggests giving them to LFS is a thing.

 

[Colin_T]

Some pet shops take fish off customers and some don't.

Shops that do take fish will either give store credit or cash. Cash is less than credit. In Australia the norm is 1/2 retail price for credit and 1/3 retail price for cash but if you sell large quantities to a shop, they usually give you less because they are buying in bulk. Same deal with importers, some shops import and sell retail. These places usually give less per fish because they bring their own into the country.

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Do not breed fish that are brother and sister. Most fish sold in pet shops are already related and breeding their offspring only weakens them further. If you want to breed the young fish you have, get rid of the males and buy in a new male from an unrelated bloodline. Unrelated guppies will usually have different coloured tails.

Alternatively, if you have a really nice male you want to breed from, put him in a separate tank and buy in some females for him. However, if the females come from a shop tank they will probably be pregnant and it could be 6 months before your male can knock them up.

 

[CV26]

Thanks for the tips

I don't think we'll breed properly - but we might just leave our current male and females together and then rescue whatever fry we spot. Then once the fry are a little larger we can take them to a LFS (if any of ours even take them)

I suspect we'll actually end up separating the sexes completely. We knew fry would happen with our current set up, however now they're here I'm not sure I can just let nature happen.

Might need to start looking for a better second tank. The current one we are using is more of cheap back up option and not particularly pretty looking.

 

[fish48]

Do not breed fish that are brother and sister. Most fish sold in pet shops are already related and breeding their offspring only weakens them further.
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colin-T if everybody took notice of not breeding brother and sister guppies we will all end up with crap. all mix up colours and of course deformities that can occur when some guppy crosses are not genetically compatible.
.the world's best quality. guppies are all inbreds and have taken many generations to create them, any one who sets up or starts off with guppies should not worry too much about the genetic side of it,
it will usually take many generations before or if any damage is done and of course when inbreeding guppies occasionally you may get genetic faults. all ways start with good quality fish discard of any deformed Fry or young. there are many myths about inbreeding Guppies for one example[ inbreeding weakens their immune system and they are more acceptable to diseases which is not entirely true,