How to breed fancy Guppies?

[Amelia MD]

Hello all.
After a disease outbreak in my 7 gallon breeder tank, my flagfish were dead (keep in mind THEY came from my LFS.) and I was in the market for some new fish. My local petsmart is always pretty reliable in terms of high quality "healthy" fish, so I brought home a beautiful bright orange male guppy. He's eating, and shows no signs of the disease that affected the tank prior to his arrival, (columnaris bacteria.) So how do I get more of this little fella? How many females to a male, and can I keep two males in my tank? I'm aware that they are prolific breeders, but being that I have a 100 gallon outdoor pond that's constantly at around 82 degrees space isn't really an issue for me.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The best way to keep livebearers (guppies, mollies, platies & swordtails) is in separate sex tanks, one tank for males and one for females. When you want to breed them you put a male & female together in a tank and leave them for a few days, then put them back in their own tanks. The females carry up to 6 sperm pack from a single mating and use one packet for each batch of eggs. The females carry the fertilised eggs and babies for about 1 month before giving birth to free swimming babies.

If you buy female guppies from a pet shop, they will probably be pregnant and you will have to let them give birth a number of times before they are no longer carrying any sperm packets, then you can breed them with a particular male.

If you want to keep a mixed sex tank consisting of males and females, then keep at least 6 females per male. However, it is better for the females if they don't have males with them all the time because the males constantly harass the females trying to breed with them, and sometimes even pester them to death.

If you have a pond you can put the females in that and let them give birth in there. Have lots of plants, especially floating plants and just let them go.

 

[NickAu]

I'm aware that they are prolific breeders

Never bred Guppies but I do have Endlers 1 male and 2 females, the females produce so many fry even 10 Bumblebee Gobys cant eat them fast enough.

 

[fish48]

endlers and guppies require the same care 1 male to 2 female should be fine and can be kept equal with males and females it works well. when keeping more than 4 pairs also when keeping a large group you can keep more males to females males spend most of their time chasing and competing with each other over females.