Breeding Guppies

[steffi0122]

I was thinking of breeding guppies. I have about 10 now in a community tank of about 7.5 gallons. i have stocked it with lots of plants...

I was told that they are fairly east to breed and if you leave them they will reproduce. Is this true? Is there something that i can do to get them to breed?

 

[pnyklr3]

Here is a step-be-step process to get your guppies to breed.

1. Have a 2:1 female to male ratio.
2. Put them in the same tank.
3. Wait 3-4 weeks.
4. Look for fry.

It's that easy. Livebearers are like the rabbits of the fish world. You can't keep them from breeding. You will get a lot more advice on the breeding and care of your guppies if you post the the "liverbearers" section. Good Luck!

Oh, and you will need plenty of places for the fry to hide or they will be eaten: by everything in your tank.

 

[sylvia]

First off, you need to know that a 7.5 gallon tank is NOT adequate for 10 guppies. The maximum you should keep in there are 4 and, with plans to breed, you will need space for the fry.

Have you heard of the 'one inch per gallon' guidline? In this case, you could use this guidline to calculate how many guppies you can keep in a tank (assuming females grow to 2 inches and males to 1, giving an average of 1.5... plus a little extra for resulting fry...).

You must remove 7 of your guppies, leaving 1 male and 2 females. You should soon get fry and the majority may get eaten but many will survive and hide in the plants. Feed them powedered flake or liquid foods for livebearers. You will have to re-home the fry, however, or buy a new tank for them as you will end up severaly over-stocked (as you are now, so please remove most of your current fish).

good luck!

 

[o-zel]

guppy r easy to breed.... all u need is high temp and feed them live food... i feed my blackworms
the size of tank don't really matter... seperate the fry no need....
i got a pretty small tank... not sure exactly the size but for sure it less then 10 gal before i have 30+ adults in there... it was jammed but they're survive.... but i gave away most n now left with ~10 adult n ton of fry... they seem to grow faster and bigger with some adult around

 

[SnowyzMom]

Yep, with guppies you can end up with wall-to-wall fry in no time. Remember the guppy girls can have 4 batches of fry from one wingding with a male, so remove any males months in advance of "okay that's enough guppies". Of course you can always add tetras...they LOVE guppy fry....auto population control. (well not in a 10 gallon, that's too much)

One can overstock a tank, it's just harder to keep it balanced and keep all the fish healthy. Just about any heated, or under a lamp, 1 gallon tub with some plants(live or silk) and abit of bottom gravel is great for holding fry in to grow some up in peace. Just remember to feed them several times a day, very finely ground up flake food or liquid fry food(best of luck keeping the females from hogging it all away from the babies)....mind you my fry are up for ANYthing and I've seen right tiny tiddlers go and grab a tubifex worm and take off with it...it's longer than they are, but they've got that guppy attitude, "It's MINE, all MINE."

Oops, I forgot to add, give the female guppies a break from bearing fry all the time. Continual giving birth really wears them out and they die much sooner. Find a small tank or container for the couple of males and let 'em have some time on their own, it's good self discipline for them anyways! B)