Babies!

[Crazycat lady]

A few days ago i put one of my heavily pregnant gup in a breeding tank. She is yet to deliver

just looked in main tank and there were 2 baby guppies swimming about. 2 of my other gups are pregnant too. so one is upstairs with the other pregnant female and other in is a breeding trap in main tank (stressing out now )

don't know which one is having the babies and i don't have enough tanks/traps to separate them all!

plus i don't wanna stress em all out so they abort.

i ushered the one i put upstairs into a large jug to transport so is not too bad but the one in the breedin trap is well annoyed!

ahhhhhh!!! at do i do! i don't want the babies to be eaten. theres 2 in the main tank but i have nowhere to put them so they don't get eaten!

 

[Crazycat lady]

right caught one baby and put it in my heavily planted breeding tank.

the guppy in the small breeding trap is currently a lot calmer and doing a big poo so don't think it's her dropping them (yet)

one i took upstairs is kinda bending forward alot which i'm assuming is contractions!

worried abt what to do (if it is her) once she's finished. i know they need a rest before going back to the males but don't wanna keep her in the breeding tank in case she eats them all.

i've got a mesh net tank that attatches to the side of the main one about 6 inches square. would that do???

help someone please

 

[This Old Spouse]

What I started doing with my guppies was separating the boys and the girls into two separate permanent tanks, as I had enough fry to last a lifetime. Of course the females would still pop out a bunch of fry every 28 days for a while, and I just left them right where they were. The tank is heavily planted with all sorts of hiding places for the fry. Some of them still get eaten, but the strongest seem to survive.

I feel that moving them back and forth when they're stressed already is just asking for trouble. Unless you're planning to start a breeding frenzy I'd just let nature take its course.

Can you move the males out of the main tank? That will help with fry survival, and so will feeding the females that deliver fry. If they have their regular food to munch on (they get really hungry after delivery) then they're less likely to munch on their own fry.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck!

 

[Crazycat lady]

I can't separate the males and females as i don't have enough tank space. my one upstairs was bought especially for the fry as i was going to raise a few broods (or try too)

i fed the fishies some brine shrimp this morning and all of my females had a good gobble so hopefully they won't be too hungry. I've left the one upstairs alone with the door shut. although the move didn't include netting her or anything too stressfull (yea i know any move is stressful) i'm just playing it safe. the tank up there is prepared for fry and heavily planted. I will go look in a couple of hours or so! just don't wanna keep peeking in and annoying her.

i'll keep you posted x

 

[Harlequins]

Keeping them in breeding traps will stress them out.
TBH it'll be better to put the females in the breeding/fry tank until they drop then transfer them back after,if your fry tank is heavily planted then its more than likely a fair amount of fry will survive.

I had 3 guppies and within 6 months i had accumulated 400 fry by saving them,until i ran out of space and ended up using a 90l storage box to raise the fry.

Its good to save them,but a few months down the line you will be overcrowded.

 

[Crazycat lady]

I noticed the mummy guppy looked a normal non pregnant size this morning. There were only 2 fry swimming about so I assumed she had aborted them.
So I transfered her back to the main tank. A couple of hours later I glanced in the breeding tank and there were 25 odd babies!
I had no idea they were so good at hiding .

So now in my breeding tank I have 25 2 day old gupps. A couple of 1 month old mollies and 2 1 month old gupps

The bbs are brewing in my hatchery and my mother has already put dibs on a load of them for her tank when the're nice and big

They have had some liquifry today and ground spirulina! The're all really big too!

 

[This Old Spouse]

Great job!

 

[Crazycat lady]

I haven't had much sucess with fry in the past. Mainly due to feeding them the wrong foods
And that I had to keep them in a breeding trap

So now the 20l is runnin
Brine shrimp hatching
Spirulina,liquifry and baby tetramin at the ready


Fingers crossed!!!

 

[Crazycat lady]

It's only been 4 days and the're twice the size! yey!

 

[Crazycat lady]

Quick update. Babies are 20 days old today. Wow only 20 days! The're doing great. They all have their black colouring on their tails now and the average nose to base of tail length I'd say is abt 10mm. All have a very healthy guppy shape (bit of a belly). Although one of them I've called quazimodo has a bent back. Been like it from birth and although looks weird is not hindering it in any way. Popped a few adult brine shrimp in yesterday and they were devoured in one!

Now at this point they all look very feminine. Dull greyish bodies with coloured tails (mummy had red and black tail) I'd say if they keep growing in this way they'll all look like their mum. Will some of them develop into males? Or because the're all in same tank with same ph, will they all be females? Been told they are all born female, when is the point when some develop into males?

Been doing 50% water change most days, missed a couple of days. Stoopid me due to lack of sleep(great fun having just 3 hours a nt) has forgotten to turn my heater back on afterwards a couple of times. But although I live in freezing england, my house is always boiling even without heating on so temp didn't go too low. Now before I start changing water I set a reminder on my phone to go off so I remember to put heater back on!

Anyway, in 2/3 weeks time they will all be moving out of the fry tank to various friends tanks, will keep a few myself for my main. Oh they grow up so fast, sniffle sniffle! But I'm chuffed to bits!

Could admin please move me out of emergencies? Thanx x

 

[Essjay]

All guppy fry look like females for a while after birth. Then the anal fins on the males will start to develop into a gonopodium. I had endlers a few years ago, and guppies are closely related. What happened with the endlers was that the first ray of the anal fins elongated then the fin slowly changed shape over several days till the fry looked male. Watch the fry for any signs of the first ray elongating - that's the time to separate them if that's what you intend doing.

 

[Crazycat lady]

Endler females have no colour though. All my fry have black spotty tails like their mum, none of the possible fathers have any black on them at all. Will the black dissapear?

 

[Essjay]

The colour of the fry doesn't go by them being the same colour as the parent of the same sex. The colour of both sexes will depend on the exact genetic make up received from both parents. In your case it sounds like all the fry got black spotty genes from their mother - it may well be that black spotty genes are dominant over non-black genes. Usually you get some colours being dominant over others but I'm not well up on guppy genetics to know which colours are dominant. I do know that grey body colour is dominant over gold, but nothing about tail colours I'm afraid.

You could try asking in the common livebearers section, someone there may be into guppy genetics.


Edited for terrible spelling.

 

[Crazycat lady]

This morning I was watching the fry during morning feeding time and noticed a few of them have developed a distinct orange tinge to their whole bodies(daddy colour). So I'm guessing the're the males. Can't wait to see what they'll look like when fully developed! Anal fins are hard to distinguish at the month, but they are growing very fast so should see soon!

 

[This Old Spouse]

This morning I was watching the fry during morning feeding time and noticed a few of them have developed a distinct orange tinge to their whole bodies(daddy colour). So I'm guessing the're the males. Can't wait to see what they'll look like when fully developed! Anal fins are hard to distinguish at the month, but they are growing very fast so should see soon!

The orange color doesn't mean they're males. They could be "blonde" females. I have two!