Breeding Guppies

[Elisabeth]

I'm thinking of starting to breed guppies. Can anyone give me some advice on how to get started and any pitfalls I need to look out for?

 

[William]

Hiya elisabeth, try reading this article: http/fish.orbust.net/livebearers.html if you've got any more questions then ask them

Breeding guppies is easy you just need to keep the water quality good and feed them like normal and babies will begin appearing in a month or so or even less if when you bought the female guppies were already pregnant

 

[Elisabeth]

Thanks for the link William. its been very useful. But I'm slightly confused. it says they should get pregnant about every month but I've had 2 of my female guppies for about 5 months now and so far I don't think they've been pregnant at all, They seem happy enough, theres 3 males in with them, loads of plants and there's been no water problems. Do you think they could have been pregnant and had fry without me realising? Is it easy to spot a pregnant guppy?

 

[William]

Thanks for the link William. its been very useful. But I'm slightly confused. it says they should get pregnant about every month but I've had 2 of my female guppies for about 5 months now and so far I don't think they've been pregnant at all, They seem happy enough, theres 3 males in with them, loads of plants and there's been no water problems. Do you think they could have been pregnant and had fry without me realising? Is it easy to spot a pregnant guppy?

I reckon they've had babies but they have been eaten

Its easy to spot a pregnant guppy as she will have a large black spot which gets bigger and bigger (fry's eyes developing) until after about a month she releases them all as little free swimming fry. How large are your guppies? Are you sure they are female? Have they had a 'gravid' spot?

 

[Elisabeth]

Yeah they're definitely female. I had a look for the gravid spot and there is definitely a small dark spot on both of them. I have seen the spots there before, but I've not noticed them change in size at all. Do non pregnant fish have anything there? Is it possible that for some reason that they are aborting the fry? And if so, how can I stop them from doing that?

 

[William]

From Bradley:

Hi Elizabeth

I'm actually a small guppy breeder, i breed them for selling. One very helpful tip is that your male/female ratio is a wee bit off, it is always best to have about 2 females to every male so, since you have 2 females and 3 males, i would suggest getting up to 4 more females. The reason for this is that with more males than females, the males will begin to fight over time to gain the right to mate with the few females, this usually ends up with no tails on the males and/or they die. Of course though, your females could have a reproductiopn problem, after all, nobody's perfect! However, with many fish in a single tank, there are higher odds of the adults eating the young. A solution to this problem would be to have only a few adults with a lot of fry at first, so that they are use to having fry around them. Then slowly add more adults,(usually a pair at a time), so that they never feel cramped which leads to them eating your young. Hope it works out for you! Good luck!!