Breeding Guppies??

[Skylar]

Well, I'd really like to start breeding guppies but I don't want to spend alot of money. I made a small list of things I'd need and hopefully it covers it. Hehe. I have a 10 gallon tank with a male guppy and some other fish where the female could live and get pregnant and then I can switch her to another tank where she can give birth.

I'm going to see if my friend will house some of the guppy fry as they grow, however. She also has female guppies and they have occasional fry so she knows how to care for them. I need to phone my LFS, too, to see if they'll buy them from me. I'll take any price they give me.

Heres a list of stuff I think I'll need.

Some sort of fish bowl or tank for birth- $10 to $20
A smaller net- $4 to $6
Fry food- Guessing $6 to $8
Total so far: $34 max.

Any tips or things to add to my list?

I also need some guides or something on how to breed them.

 

[charmd2]

honestly, just have females and males, you'll have fry if there is plenty of cover for them to hide in.

I would skip the fry food, just crush up flakes into powder.

If you can't house the fry as they are growing, don't bother. It would be no fun to transport baby fry to a friends house, then from the friends house to the lfs as they get bigger.

In order to get the best growth from the fry, do daily water changes. Feed every four to six hours.

 

[Skylar]

The only problem is, will my tetras eat the fry? if they won't, I can easily house them. I would only bring them to my friend's if she wanted some of them.

 

[Dragon 98]

If you are going to transport them get WHITE SPOT TREATMENT. Guppies get streeses very easyly and get a parrisite that can kill them.

 

[Kittycat]

I think the best breeding setup would be to keep the mom where she is and just provide plenty of cover for fry so they don't get eaten--e.g. java moss or some other plant. I'd go for live food over commercial dry baby food--BBS, microworms and the like.

 

[SnowyzMom]

Definitely Tetras will eat guppy fry. Mine think they're crunch n munch with tails! They wait down below then dart up and grab them, one gulp and gone....which is why I now grow out all the fry in the 10 gallon and leave the tetras and male guppies in the 25. It doesn't take long for a female guppy to get preggers by the way and she can pop out 3-4 broods from one go round. Just make sure there's many more females than males because the males are always so horny they'll wear the females out chasing them all over unless they've got alot of girls to choose from. I have java moss for the babies to hide in and snack on, plus several live plants they can also hide in. Piles of marbles apparently work well. I find the fry often down among the gravel, nosing around for snacks.

Regarding food, my fry do well on fish flakes powdered up, occasional bloodworms powdered up(not often, high protein!), fresh/tinned/cooked peas smushed in the water, and the fry nibble on the corydoras shrimp pellets which mush up in the water unless the cories are really fast and sit on the pellets . You can often find powdered food at the bottom of the food canister anyways, stuff that broke up in shipping, which makes it easier. Once the males get big enough they go in with the larger males, but not until they are beyond tetra snacking size!

Good luck and let us know how it goes. I observed my daughter and felt the females were always mega stressed in a fry trap. So long as there's a well planted quiet corner of the tank for her to rest and give birth in, I don't see a fry trap as necessary but that's just me, my way of doing things.

 

[ferrikins]

I thought I'd add, do NOT use a fry trap/net. I had to many fish die in the death traps.